The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.

When you’re doing a film and the majority of the film is cast black, for me, it’s most important to get people to view those movies as just movies, as just good movies. At the end of the day, regardless of the color of the cast, we’re all doing the same thing in this business: trying to make a good film.

Getting money is not all a man’s business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

After your death you will be what you were before your birth.

When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.

Mortality is very different when you’re 20 to when you’re 50.

No great thing is created suddenly.

Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.

The man who knows it can’t be done counts the risk, not the reward.

Justice is a temporary thing that must at last come to an end; but the conscience is eternal and will never die.

Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.

Probably because I’m from a middle class family, I have that nature in me that I don’t get too excited with big things.

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

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

Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.

He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.

The word ‚happy‘ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.

I really don’t pay attention to the outside world when I’m incarcerated, because being in prison is like being in a different world. So I don’t pay attention to what’s going on outside of jail, because it’s all beyond my control.

Consider, when you are enraged at any one, what you would probably think if he should die during the dispute.

When you have nobody you can make a cup of tea for, when nobody needs you, that’s when I think life is over.

While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn’t the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today.

There are no such things as Flowers there are only gladdened Leaves.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

O wise man! Give your wealth only to the worthy and never to others. The water of the sea received by the clouds is always sweet.

Football (soccer) is a matter of life and death, except more important.

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe – because, like Spinoza’s God, it won’t love us in return.

We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.

I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.

Premature certainty is the enemy of the truth.

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

Our words will either bring life and victory or death and destruction. If we want to be happy, we have to be serious about speaking words of life that line up with God’s Word.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

Who would set a limit to the mind of man? Who would dare assert that we know all there is to be known?

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.

One who is too insistent on his own views, finds few to agree with him.

Fame doesn’t fulfill you. It warms you a bit, but that warmth is temporary.

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.

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