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.

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.

Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible.

My daughter doesn’t even get my humor. She’s like, ‚Um, no. I don’t get it, Dad. Mmm, no, not that one, Dad.‘

It’s hard for me to grasp the concept of somebody being nervous when I’m talking to them.

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

So let’s be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes.

I’m never a reliable narrator, unbiased or objective.

What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.

This is not a bad life.

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, uses that something to support their own existence.

Do everything as in the eye of another.

I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

I think who you are in school really sticks with you. I don’t ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It’s like, ‚Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.‘

Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.

The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended-and not to take a hint when a hint isn’t intended.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.

If you don’t get out of the box you’ve been raised in, you won’t understand how much bigger the world is.

An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means.

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

There is something curiously boring about somebody else’s happiness.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

They are resilient children, but they are children, and as much as they need help to understand the hard truths in life, they also need what we all need – protection and love.

What women need to understand is that men don’t communicate. It’s not intentional or on purpose. We’re just not as emotional. You ladies feel like you have to express yourselves.

I think any life can be interesting, any surroundings can be interesting. I don’t think I could have been so brave if I had been living in a town, competing with people on what can be called a generally higher cultural level.

Money can’t buy life.

The divisions of Perspective are 3, as used in drawing; of these, the first includes the diminution in size of opaque objects; the second treats of the diminution and loss of outline in such opaque objects; the third, of the diminution and loss of colour at long distances.

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

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.

Real magic in relationships means an absence of judgment of others.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.

If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.

Teach me to feel another’s woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

When we value correct principles, we have truth – a knowledge of things as they are.

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.

Being happy is a matter of personal taste.

Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.