If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it’s my wonder and delight in the earth as it is, particularly the natural earth.

Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.

Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

The coniferous forests of the Yosemite Park, and of the Sierra in general, surpass all others of their kind in America, or indeed the world, not only in the size and beauty of the trees, but in the number of species assembled together, and the grandeur of the mountains they are growing on.

Positive anything is better than negative nothing.

What is true of the individual will be tomorrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.

Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.

I have lived long enough to satisfy both nature and glory.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

Life is either a great adventure or nothing.

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

Billy Graham is one of my great lifetime heroes. I think he epitomizes the essence of what a Christian leader should be. I have participated in some of his crusades a couple of times in Atlanta. I’ve seen the profound impact he’s had on me personally, and on other people who were not Christians and accepted Christ as Savior.

The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.

The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

I read everything, but generally more fact than fiction – especially autobiographies and biographies. I’ve read ‚Long Walk to Freedom‘ by Nelson Mandela at least twice on holiday. Every time, I’m totally awed by his vision, strength and forgiveness. I feel honoured to have got to know him and his wonderful wife Graca over the years.

Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.

History shows that the majority of people that have done anything great have passed their youth in seclusion.

Ideas excite me, and as soon as I get excited, the adrenaline gets going and the next thing I know I’m borrowing energy from the ideas themselves.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.

I don’t know how many good books I still have in me; I hope there are another four or five.

Get up, stand up, Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, Don’t give up the fight.

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

How I love David Bowie.

It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.

Whenever I’m around some who is modest, I think, ‚Run like hell and all of fire.‘ You don’t want modesty, you want humility.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident that he is leading his people the right way.

Everybody has a purpose.

Most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.

Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else.

Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

In cricket, my superhero is Sachin Tendulkar. He has always been my hero and will continue to remain so. Apart from him and outside cricket, my mother has remained my inspiration. Whatever difficult time I had faced, she was always there for me. She has given me all the strength. She maintained her composure and supported me in tough times.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

In every walk of life, you must have leaders. An education in the spiritual world, in the labor field, in the agricultural field, we must have leaders.

Bill Gates has always been a mentor and inspiration for me even before I knew him. Just growing up, I admired how Microsoft was mission-focused.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

Consider a tree for a moment. As beautiful as trees are to look at, we don’t see what goes on underground – as they grow roots. Trees must develop deep roots in order to grow strong and produce their beauty. But we don’t see the roots. We just see and enjoy the beauty. In much the same way, what goes on inside of us is like the roots of a tree.

I respect Drake not only as a creative person but as a business mind as well. I think Drake’s important.

The more violent the storm, the quicker it passes.

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.

I’m definitely a Polaroid camera girl. For me, what I’m really excited about is bringing back the artistry and the nature of Polaroid.

The method of nature: who could ever analyze it?

Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.

I want people to draw strength from me.

Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Hope is a waking dream.

Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.

People want to feel hopeful.

I have wondered about time all my life.

There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn’t look at all like the way you said it before. I don’t know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.