Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius.

Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

‚Lives‘ is one of those books I should really have written when I was younger. It is the classic childhood, adolescence, breakthrough-into-maturity book. Every beginning writer has that material – and after that, you’re not sure what you can do.

Never regret what you don’t write.

The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.

God has equipped you to handle difficult things. In fact, He has already planted the seeds of discipline and self-control inside you. You just have to water those seeds with His Word to make them grow!

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn’t copy my style from anybody.

Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.

You have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally.

To write it, it took three months; to conceive it three minutes; to collect the data in it all my life.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living.

Philosophy begins in wonder.

To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.

Hope is the magic carpet that transports us from the present moment into the realm of infinite possibilities.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

Modern science says: ‚The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.‘ From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom.

Stand a little less between me and the sun.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

Theology is unnecessary.

Fanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons.

I’m inspired by Walt Disney. I’m inspired by Howard Hughes. I’m inspired by Henry Ford. I’m inspired by Steve Jobs. I mean, I’m inspired by James Perse.

A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.

The truth is lived, not taught.

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

I try to use my experience and the fact that I grew up in the ghetto – I tell people you don’t have to rob or steal to get out of the ghetto.

Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.

It usually helps me write by reading – somehow the reading gear in your head turns the writing gear.

Where love is, there God is also.

Why do I like to write short stories? Well, I certainly didn’t intend to. I was going to write a novel. And still! I still come up with ideas for novels. And I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up. I look at what I really want to do with the material, and it never turns out to be a novel.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

The greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.

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

There is a specter haunting Europe, the specter of Communism.

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.

For me, writing a song, I sit down and the process doesn’t really involve me thinking about the demographic of people I’m trying to hit or who I want to be able to relate to the song or what genre of music it falls under.

The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

I tell everybody, I get so much because I give so much. I give freely, I give all my time, give all my money, give all of my soul. I try to motivate people. I try to inspire them.

Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him.

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.

Philosophy: Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.

No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

The way up and the way down are one and the same.

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

Genius always finds itself a century too early.

The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment, it is all that links them together.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.

Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.

No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

We live in a culture that relishes tearing others down. It’s ultimately more fulfilling, though, to help people reach their goals. Instead of feeling jealous, remember: If God did it for them, He can do it for you.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.