‚Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

Being is the great explainer.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

I don’t want to express my opinion about actual politics, because if I do, I have to be responsible for my decision.

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

He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.

There is nothing permanent except change.

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.

We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting.

Vulnerability is basically uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.

All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

I’m working on my life story. I’m not decided if it’s going to be a musical or a movie with music in it.

God not only plays dice, He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.

Would you bet your paycheck on a weather forecast for tomorrow? If not, then why should this country bet billions on global warming predictions that have even less foundation?

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.

Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality.

One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.

The spiritual is the parent of the practical.

God does not play dice.

And, after all, what is a lie? ‚Tis but the truth in a masquerade.

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living.

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.

Those who cry out that the government should ‚do something‘ never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something, compared to what actually happened when the government did nothing.

In the affairs of this world, men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it.

Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.

You can’t have a value structure without a hierarchy. They’re the same thing because a value structure means one thing takes precedence over another.

If you call yourself a leader, then you have to be decisive. If you’re decisive, then you have the chance to be a leader. These are two sides to the same coin.

Our faith is faith in someone else’s faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case.

In matters of truth the fact that you don’t want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.

History should be written as philosophy.

I played Othello, but I didn’t sit around thinking how Laurence Olivier did it when he played it. That wouldn’t do me any good.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: ‚Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?‘ If you don’t ask those questions, your governance will not be good.

Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning.

It is a fine game to play – the game of politics – and it is well worth waiting for a good hand before really plunging.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.

Intuition and concepts constitute… the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge.

I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who’s not doing a good job. But I didn’t make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

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

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?

Time stays, we go.

Part of the reason there’s an injunction to the truth, for example, is that if you’re in a circumstance of extreme uncertainty, your best weapon, let’s say, or your best tool or your best defense is the truth, because it keeps things simpler.

There are definitely people who disagree with certain creative decisions you make. Pleasing everyone is pretty hard.

When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.

I’ve never gone wrong trusting my gut.

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