When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'.
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
What you're thinking is what you're becoming.
The future is uncertain but the end is always near.
A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.
He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing.
Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.
One just needs a little alertness to see and find out: Life is really a great cosmic laughter.
Above all be of single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it.
Good means not merely not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.
If you place your head in a lion's mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off.
Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.
He who conquers others is strong; he who conquers himself is mighty.
To do great things is difficult, but to command great things is more difficult.
I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.
But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.
Most of what matters in our lives takes place in our absence.
We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.