They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.

An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

Being young is a great advantage, since we see the world from a new perspective and we are not afraid to make radical changes.

I’m rather kind of old school, thinking that when an artist does his work, it’s no longer his… I just see what people make of it.

What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.

All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us.

I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

Sometimes we look back and 10 years from now we think, ‚Boy, those were great old days.‘ Well, you know, we’re living in the good old days.

My view is that at a younger age your optimism is more and you have more imagination etc. You have less bias.

Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be.

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what’s evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We’re less sure about what is good. There’s sort of good, good enough, could be better – but absolute good is a little harder to define.

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else’s type of thinking.

Nobody enjoys the ‚little show about nothing‘ humor more than me, but that is never the way I look at it.

So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.

Life’s a bit like mountaineering – never look down.

I don’t think the Christian Right dominates America in the way some in the media believe they do.

September 11 shocked many Americans into an awareness that they had better pay much closer attention to what the U.S. government does in the world and how it is perceived. Many issues have been opened for discussion that were not on the agenda before. That’s all to the good.

Before the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect.

See, people are watching you. Especially your children. They’re taking in every single thing you do. They are like video cameras with legs. And they are always in the record mode. They learn more from what you do than from what you say.

I’ve been trying to… Having been an English literary graduate, I’ve been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity.

Few people have the imagination for reality.

It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.

To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people.

He who lives in our mind is near though he may actually be far away; but he who is not in our heart is far though he may really be nearby.

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

We live in ugly times.

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

I think there is a lot made out of age, and what age you feel.

The label ‚liberal‘ or ‚conservative,‘ any – every time I hear that, I think of the great Gilbert and Sullivan song from ‚Iolanthe.‘ It goes, ‚Every gal and every boy that’s born alive is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.‘ What do those labels mean? It depends on whose ox is being gored.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

The philosophical question before us is, when we make an observation of our track in the past, does the result of our observation become real in the same sense that the final state would be defined if an outside observer were to make the observation?

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.

At the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values, and your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are.

I was always very curious as a young man about why older writers who I met seemed so indifferent to what was going on, whereas I, in my 20s, was reading everything. Everything seemed important. But they were only interested in the writers they admired when they were young, and I didn’t understand it then, but now, now I understand it.

The reason why men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.

It’s amazing how confused and distracted and misdirected so many people are.

I give infinite thanks to God, who has been pleased to make me the first observer of marvelous things.

For me, money is not my definition of success. Inspiring people is a definition of success.

As soon as I hear a sound, it always suggests a mood to me.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

‚Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.

I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

I don’t think I would be interested in the climate at all if I had been like everyone else.

Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.

Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.

It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.