The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.

You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Producing all my own songs and refusing to go to the hot producer. That’s the biggest risk I’ve taken so far.

Wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you, speak the very truth, as your life and conscience teach it, and cheer the waiting, fainting hearts of men with new hope and new revelation.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

In a way, the whole tangible universe itself is a vast residue, a skeleton of countless lives that have germinated in it and have left it, leaving behind them only a trifling, infinitesimal part of their riches.

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

If you study the writings of the mystics, you will always find things in them that appear to be paradoxes, as in Zen, particularly.

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

If you understand the universe, you control it, in a way.

Each life makes its own immitation of immortality.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

Life isn’t fair, but God is.

I love life because what more is there?

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.

Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‚What are you doing for others?‘

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.

We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.

Your joy comes from how you think, the choices that we make in life.

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.

Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side.

I know some really outstanding Turkish journalists, and have been pleased and honored to be able to join with them a few times in their courageous protests against state terror and repression.

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.

No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.

I no longer feel attracted to the well-made novel. I want to write the story that will zero in and give you intense, but not connected, moments of experience. I guess that’s the way I see life. People remake themselves bit by bit and do things they don’t understand.

By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.

Knowledge is true opinion.

My life is a struggle.

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.

A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.

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

Nothing can be divided into more parts than it can possibly be constituted of. But matter (i.e. finite) cannot be constituted of infinite parts.

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

At first, I was scared to show fear because you can never be sure how people will perceive you. But I dared myself to do that, to stand out. Now I’ll talk about being beaten up or robbed or making a stupid decision because of a girl or whatever.

To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.

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 we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.

Life’s a fight. It’s a good fight of faith.

We have lost contact with reality, the simplicity of life.

The future is called ‚perhaps‘, which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.

I don’t think that you can be prescriptive about anything, I mean, life is too complicated. Maybe there are novels where the author has not in the least thought about it in terms of film, which can be turned into good films.

Life is our dictionary.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

Without football, my life is worth nothing.

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

Hell is other people.