To abandon oneself to principles is really to die – and to die for an impossible love which is the contrary of love.

My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes‘ palaces.

Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

It’s really easy to have a nice philosophy about openness, but moving the world in that direction is a different thing. It requires both understanding where you want to go and being pragmatic about getting there.

There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.

Tell your wife often how terrific she looks.

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.

Either he’s dead or my watch has stopped.

Marriage destroyed my relationship with two wonderful men.

Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything.

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

Any man who doesn’t love his mama can’t be no friend of mine.

When we go to the Bible we should keep in mind that the basic principles of the Bible are taught by God, but written down by human beings deprived of modern day knowledge. So there is some fallibility in the writings of the Bible. But the basic principles are applicable to my life and I don’t find any conflict among them.

A woman can bring a new love to each man she loves, providing there are not too many.

Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope.

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.

My love is a hummingbird sitting that quiet moment on the bough, as the same cat crouches.

Sorry, I’m still a dialectical materialist.

Love is a really scary thing, and you never know what’s going to happen. It’s one of the most beautiful things in life, but it’s one of the most terrifying. It’s worth the fear because you have more knowledge, experience, you learn from people, and you have memories.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

I don’t think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking theres some kind of change.

Nature never breaks her own laws.

All the songs I write are about human dynamics, whether it’s with girlfriends, boyfriends, or family.

Whether you like it or not, you’re forced to come to the realisation that death is out there. But I don’t fear death, I’m a fatalist. I believe when it’s your time, that’s it. It’s the hand you’re dealt.

For me, already being part of a single parent household and knowing it was just me and my mom, you’d would wake up times and hope that the next day you’d be able to be alongside your mother because she was out trying to make sure that I was taken care of. But all I cared about was her being home.

From an eternal perspective, the only death that is truly premature is the death of one who is not prepared to meet God.

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

The way up and the way down are one and the same.

A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.

I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m a writer who’s writing books, and therefore, I don’t want to die. You’d miss the end of the book wouldn’t you? You can’t die with an unfinished book.

You are doomed to make choices. This is life’s greatest paradox.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.

He who looks the higher is the more highly distinguished, and turning over the great book of nature (which is the proper object of philosophy) is the way to elevate one’s gaze.

O love, if I regret the age when one savors you, it is not for the hour of pleasure, but for the one that follows it.

Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.

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.

I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?

Whenever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.

The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.

My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.

No one can outrun death. It will catch up to all of us eventually.

For me, when I picture the person I want to end up with, I don’t think about what their career is, or what they look like. I picture the feeling I get when I’m with them.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy’s ranks.

Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable, and praised when they are not praiseworthy.

All genuinely intellectual work is humorous.