To correct a natural indifference I was placed half-way between misery and the sun. Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun, and the sun taught me that history wasn’t everything.

We see the world not as it is, but as we are.

When you look at the light bulb above you, you remember Thomas Alva Edison. When the telephone bell rings, you remember Alexander Graham Bell. Marie Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. When you see the blue sky, you think of Sir C.V. Raman.

Movies are fun, but they are no cure for cancer.

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

I don’t look at a man who’s expert in one area as a specialist. I look at him as a rookie in ten other areas.

Kids will remind you that, even though you’ve gone down a road 100 times, it’s brand new for them – and that’s healthy.

You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in – in 2007, we just didn’t know it was uncertain. It was – uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn’t know it.

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

I know for sure that loves saves me and that it is here to save us all.

Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.

Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.

We have communion with Christ in His thoughts, views, and purposes; for His thoughts are our thoughts according to our capacity and sanctity. Believers take the same view of matters as Jesus does; that which pleases Him pleases them, and that which grieves His grieves them also.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

One of the good things about the way the Gulf War ended in 1991 is, you’d see the Vietnam veterans marching with the Gulf War veterans.

If some people have the belief or view that the Dalai Lama has some miracle power, that’s totally nonsense. I am just one human being.

Born to a tribal Bedouin family of nomadic desert shepherds in the region of Tripoli, Gaddafi was profoundly anti-colonialist. It is affirmed that his paternal grandfather died fighting against the Italian invaders when Libya was invaded by them in 1911.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.

God does not play dice.

You’re dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.

Bad food is made without pride, by cooks who have no pride, and no love. Bad food is made by chefs who are indifferent, or who are trying to be everything to everybody, who are trying to please everyone… Bad food is fake food… food that shows fear and lack of confidence in people’s ability to discern or to make decisions about their lives.

A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts.

Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.

The hippie movement politicized my generation. When it ended, we all started looking back at our own history, looking, in my case, for motives of rebellion.

It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.

I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

I was born on a full moon. Both my children were born on full moons, too. Some people say that’s scary. It is what it is, man, I don’t be trippin‘. I couldn’t tell God when I wanted to be born.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved.

Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.

The world is divided into two classes, those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable.

I don’t believe in death, neither in flesh nor in spirit.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We, of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

I’m a strict, strict agnostic. It’s very different from a casual, ‚I don’t know.‘ It’s that you cannot present as knowledge something that is not knowledge. You can present it as faith, you can present it as belief, but you can’t present it as fact.

From my standpoint, being an artist, I want to see what the new construction is between artist and audience.

For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.

The Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum.

Well, we can’t say any more than we can say there is no god, there is no afterlife. We can only say there is no persuasive evidence for or argument for it.

It doesn’t matter where you come from, what you have or don’t have, what you lack, or what you have too much of. But all you need to have is faith in God, an undying passion for what you do and what you choose to do in this life, and a relentless drive and the will to do whatever it takes to be successful in whatever you put your mind to.

I’ve had faith my whole life that there was someone looking out for me, a spirit guide, a soul guide.

I’ve never dropped anyone I believed in.

A lot of us grow up and we grow out of the literal interpretation that we get when we’re children, but we bear the scars all our life. Whether they’re scars of beauty or scars of ugliness, it’s pretty much in the eye of the beholder.

A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.

I have been ever of opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.

There was a while when I was feeling like, ‚Damn, if I’d just been born black, I would not have to go through all this‘.

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about dying, but I like to think that I’ve – if it did occur – that I would die peacefully and not make too much of a fuss about it.

I think it’s a very good thing to leave your country and look at it from afar.

No one but a fool is always right.

Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning.

Grow in the root of all grace, which is faith. Believe God’s promises more firmly than ever. Allow your faith to increase in its fullness, firmness, and simplicity.

How wonderful it is to be an American. We have known the best of times and the worst of times.