The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.

I’m first and foremost a writer. I followed my personal legend, my childhood dream of becoming a writer, but I can’t say why I’m one.

Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

You must show the world that you abhor fighting.

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

Time was when they that feared the Lord spake often to one another; I am afraid that now they more often speak one against another.

A lot of people like to do certain things, but they’re not that good at it. Keep going through the things that you like to do, until you find something that you actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything.

Everybody has a purpose.

Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.

I want you to be everything that’s you, deep at the center of your being.

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

No violent extreme endures.

I used to wonder if it was God’s plan that I should be alone for so much of my life. But I found peace. I found happiness within people and the world.

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.

More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars – yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.

Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong.

I once wanted to prove myself by being a great actress. Now I want to prove that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll be a great actress.

It’s an endless proving of myself, that I really am a musician, that I have something to offer in the room. That women can be musicians, women can be rock stars, women can be more than an objectified idea of a pop star.

Why am I a star? It can’t be because of looks.

I’d go from film to film and almost detach from one world and jump in another. I was living as these people and not having a self. I didn’t know who I was. And things just get really dark.

To some extent I happily don’t know what I’m doing. I feel that it’s an artist’s responsibility to trust that.

I do not believe we will have a war with Iran.

We can’t afford to be killing one another.

Disagreement is something normal.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.

I don’t understand why or how we can bully each other.

Clean fighting solves everything. It ends all bad blood and any ill feelings people have. That’s my thoughts.

The things that transfixed you as a child, that you found most exciting was not a passing fancy, but a message about what you’re supposed to do.

That is the real spiritual awakening, when something emerges from within you that is deeper than who you thought you were. So, the person is still there, but one could almost say that something more powerful shines through the person.

I want to be just a pure spiritual leader.

There can be no doubt that the average man blames much more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied he says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

Every religious group, while perhaps a majority somewhere, is also inevitably a minority somewhere else. Thus, religious organizations should and do show tolerance toward members of other religious denominations.

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

I had the classic 40 meltdown. I did. It’s embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.

Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

I began writing at the age of 5, but there was a dark period between the ages of 8 and 16 when I didn’t write. I started again at 16 and have no idea why, but it was suddenly the only thing I wanted to do.

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.