Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.

The first book I ever really read was Plato’s ‚Republic,‘ and then I had to go over that five times or something.

When exploring London, you will come across lots of excitement by chance, so try to take everything in rather than just rushing around to all of the major tourist haunts.

Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.

The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong.

A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.

You’re going to die. You’re going to be dead. It could be 20 years, it could be tomorrow, anytime. So am I. I mean, we’re just going to be gone. The world’s going to go on without us. All right now. You do your job in the face of that, and how seriously you take yourself you decide for yourself.

It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.

Old age: the crown of life, our play’s last act.

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

Speak the truth, and all things alive or brute are vouchers, and the very roots of the grass underground there, do seem to stir and move to bear you witness.

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

I’ve been afraid of people playing their life away with too many toys.

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?

We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal’s ‚Pensees‘ and read, ‚I am the great silent spaces between worlds.‘

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.

No one can outrun death. It will catch up to all of us eventually.

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.

If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

Half a truth is better than no politics.

The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.

People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

All variety of created objects which represent order and life in the universe could happen only by the willful reasoning of its original Creator, whom I call the ‚Lord God.‘

Death is just life’s next big adventure.

Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

The arts don’t exist in isolation.

I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.

In that film, the man and the part met. As far as I’m concerned, that part is Greg’s for life. I’ve had many, many offers to turn it into musicals, into TV or stage plays, but I’ve always refused.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

There are three constants in life… change, choice and principles.

Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.

By a lie, a man… annihilates his dignity as a man.

I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I’m just trying to create a good one for myself.

For the world to be interesting, you have to be manipulating it all the time.

Football (soccer) is a matter of life and death, except more important.

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

Peace if possible, truth at all costs.

The truth is I love being alive. And I love feeling free. So if I can’t have those things then I feel like a caged animal and I’d rather not be in a cage. I’d rather be dead. And it’s real simple. And I think it’s not that uncommon.

Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.

Here ends my forever memorable first High Sierra excursion. I have crossed the Range of Light, surely the brightest and best of all the Lord has built. And, rejoicing in its glory, I gladly, gratefully, hopefully pray I may see it again.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.