Our experience of any painting is always the latest line in a long conversation we’ve been having with painting. There’s no way of looking at art as though you hadn’t seen art before.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

I don’t think it’s possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.

A fool is wise in his eyes.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

Well, I was 29 years old when I came to the United States Senate, and I have learned a lot.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong.

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.

The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

Once you get into this great stream of history, you can’t get out.

I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun.

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

The experience of pain or loss can be a formidably motivating force.

Life is not living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That’s not life. Somehow our American culture has made it out that that’s what life needs to be – and that if it’s not that, it’s all screwed up. It’s not.

It’s not morbid to talk about death. Most people don’t worry about death, they worry about a bad death.

When you are young you tend to do so many things that are not needed. When you get experience, you know what exactly what works for you and you tend to do things that you want.

The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.

There really is no difference between the bully and the victim.

It’s not a science when you are judging art, but we’d be remiss to say you can’t look at something and say, ‚This is more well done than that.‘

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist.

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

Take time to gather up the past so that you will be able to draw from your experience and invest them in the future.

As human beings, we are all not conducting just one narrative but many narratives all at the same time.

Look at situations from all angles, and you will become more open.

What’s the use of happiness? It can’t buy you money.

The frontier between hell and heaven is only the difference between two ways of looking at things.

Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

I like some animals more than some people, some people more than some animals.

There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?

I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America’s really large shadow and that’s not all that bad.

I grew up in a very nice house in Houston, went to private school all my life and I’ve never even been to the ‚hood. Not that there’s anything wrong with the ‚hood.

I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope.

It is normal to give away a little of one’s life in order not to lose it all.

Do not be very upright in your dealings for you would see by going to the forest that straight trees are cut down while crooked ones are left standing.

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.

To some extent I liken slavery to death.

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

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.

For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

I think everyone should approach relationships from the perspective of playing it straight and giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Until he establishes that this is a game. And if it’s a game, you need to win. The best thing to do is just walk away from the table.

Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures.

The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

The statesman’s duty is to bridge the gap between his nation’s experience and his vision.

I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people.