Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.
Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.
It takes a great man to be a good listener.
And this sensitivity will create new friendships for you - friendships with trees, with birds, with animals, with mountains, with rivers, with oceans, with stars. Life becomes richer as love grows.
Man's sensitivity to the little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange disorder.
To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
The only real laughter comes from despair.
It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.
You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.
Destiny is not a passive agent that lies in the lap of the Gods, but is an active instrument that lies in your own hands to shape as you will.
There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacing of the spheres.
A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.
A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.
Your reputation is in the hands of others. That's what the reputation is. You can't control that. The only thing you can control is your character.
Every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know.
