It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.

Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

When I was a boy we didn’t wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner.

The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people’s opinions.

Some people, they take their form of working out as a religion that they think is better than everyone else’s. I’m not like that. If you have a better way to work out, and you can teach it to me, and I find it to be useful and gets me in better shape, I’m all about.

I tried being reasonable, I didn’t like it.

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

It takes no more time to see the good side of life than it takes to see the bad.

If a man or woman is born ten years sooner or later, their whole aspect and performance shall be different.

I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing; a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.

What is normal? Normal was yesterday. If you lose a leg, one day you’re hopping around on one leg, so you know the difference.

We have one planet in our solar system that’s habitable, and that’s the Earth, and space travel can transform things back here for the better. First of all, by just having people go to space and look back on this fragile planet we live on. People have come back transformed and have done fantastic things.

If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

There is no unique picture of reality.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

Sin is geographical.

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.

A child thinks 20 shillings and 20 years can scarce ever be spent.

If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.

I actually don’t want a throne at all, because I don’t view myself as a queen; I view myself as one of my fans.

People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.

The divisions of Perspective are 3, as used in drawing; of these, the first includes the diminution in size of opaque objects; the second treats of the diminution and loss of outline in such opaque objects; the third, of the diminution and loss of colour at long distances.

I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I’m wrong, I am inclined to agree with him.

We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

It is very nearly impossible… to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

It’s a funny old world.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.

A pessimist? That’s a person who has been intimately acquainted with an optimist.

A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.

Information is not knowledge.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.

I don’t consider myself to be that credulous.

Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

We do not know what is really good or bad fortune.

People see things differently and remember things differently. It’s why if somebody robs a liquor store and there are four witnesses they’ll often disagree.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

To love someone means to see him as God intended him.

Read about history, and you become aware that nothing starts with us.

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.

When you have kids, you see life through different eyes. You feel love more deeply and are maybe a little more compassionate. It’s inevitable that that would make its way into your songwriting.

When you’re doing a film and the majority of the film is cast black, for me, it’s most important to get people to view those movies as just movies, as just good movies. At the end of the day, regardless of the color of the cast, we’re all doing the same thing in this business: trying to make a good film.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

On the other hand, you have different fingers.