Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism.

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?

What’s done can’t be undone.

Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.

I think tolerance and acceptance and love is something that feeds every community.

I love money because I’ve earned it. I won sixty G’s with my first knockout – and the week before, I was collecting social welfare.

It doesn’t matter who likes you or doesn’t like you, all that matters is that God likes you. He accepts you, he approves of you.

Suppose you could gain everything in the whole world, and lost your soul. Was it worth it?

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

You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.

Don’t feel sorry for me.

Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

In this big ball of people, I’m just one grain of sand on this beach.

Real life is the life that’s in you, not your circumstances, like where you live or what job you have or who you’re in relationship with.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

I think beating myself up sometimes and knowing I am not happy when I do it makes me work harder to do a good job.

I know now that there is no one thing that is true – it is all true.

But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.

Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind you.

Things won’t get better dwelling on the past. Accept what has happened. Then move forward.

The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

I don’t think culture is something you can describe.

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

We are continually shaped by the forces of coincidence.

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Either you’re the one erasing or you’re the one being erased.

Racial prejudice, anti-Semitism, or hatred of anyone with different beliefs has no place in the human mind or heart.

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

If we don’t plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don’t have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don’t have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

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

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Until you have cultivated the habit of saying some kind word of those whom you do not admire, you will be neither successful nor happy.

We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I’m going to be alive, I want to be challenged – to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn’t an easy way, but it’s a rewarding way.

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

So many people are looking at what’s wrong, and I try to encourage them to look at what’s right in their life. A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

People always say that you can’t please everybody. I think that’s a cop-out. Why not attempt it? ‚Cause think of all the people you will please if you try.

In order to heal others, we first need to heal ourselves. And to heal ourselves, we need to know how to deal with ourselves.

The ‚I think‘ which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the ‚I breathe‘ which actually does accompany them.

It’s more interesting for me to figure out how to be superior in areas where I’m naive, where I’m a novice.

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

My mother did not like children.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.

If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.

Nothing cannot exist forever.

Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?

People think, because we’re young, we aren’t complex, but that’s not true. We deal with life and love and broken hearts in the same way a woman a few years older might.