The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

Irrespective of whether you have talent or not, one has to work hard. Just being talented doesn’t mean anything; you can end up wasting it before you realize.

He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.

We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

Sometimes the majority just means all the fools are on the same side.

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.

Nothing stops the man who desires to achieve. Every obstacle is simply a course to develop his achievement muscle. It’s a strengthening of his powers of accomplishment.

Both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom: the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.

When I look back at what I had to go through in black baseball, I can only marvel at the many black players who stuck it out for years in the Jim Crow leagues because they had nowhere else to go.

The same law takes place in a system, consisting of many bodies, as in one single body, with regard to their persevering in their state of motion or of rest. For the progressive motion, whether of one single body or of a whole system of bodies, is always to be estimated from the motion of the center of gravity.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Philosophy is the highest music.

Life is hard. After all, it kills you.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he’d lie just to keep his hand in.

Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries.

Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

I need music. It’s like my heartbeat, so to speak. It keeps me going no matter what’s going on – bad games, press, whatever!

There is no education like adversity.

A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

You know, there is always times where you feel discouraged and things coming against you, but I don’t know if I ever wanted to throw in the towel.

Things do not always happen the way I would like them to happen, and I had better get used to that.

It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.

In war there is no prize for runner-up.

If I get stuck, I look at a book that tells me how someone else did it. I turn the pages, and then I say, ‚Oh, I forgot that bit,‘ then close the book and carry on. Finally, after you’ve figured out how to do it, you read how they did it and find out how dumb your solution is and how much more clever and efficient theirs is!

Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.

It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even… knowledge, was foolproof.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.

I grew up where, when a door closed, a window didn’t open. The only thing I had was cracks. I’d do everything to get through those cracks – scratch, claw, bite, push, bleed. Now the opportunity is here. The door is wide open, and it’s as big as a garage.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

The truth is lived, not taught.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.

Don’t swap horses in crossing a stream.

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature’s way.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

I have never sat down and studied the Bible, never consciously echoed its language, and am, in reality, as ignorant of it as most brought-up Christians. All of the Bible that I use in my work is remembered from childhood and is the common property of all who were brought up in English-speaking communities.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.

The vegetable life does not content itself with casting from the flower or the tree a single seed, but it fills the air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, that, if thousands perish, thousands may plant themselves, that hundreds may come up, that tens may live to maturity; that, at least one may replace the parent.

I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

My lectures, based on Islamic teachings, were on various subjects. Some of the titles were, ‚The Intoxication of Life,‘ ‚The Purpose of Life,‘ ‚The Real Cause of Man’s Distress,‘ ‚The Journey to the Goal in Life,‘ and, one of my favorites, ‚The Heart of Man.‘ They contained important insights that spoke to something deep inside me.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

Truth is everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.

While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed the worst, and with continued unity of effort, we shall rapidly recover. There is one certainty of the future of a people of the resources, intelligence and character of the people of the United States – that is, prosperity.

Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

I’m inspired by people who keep on rolling, no matter their age.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.