A period of high civilization is one in which thoughts fly freely from mind to mind, from one country to another-yes, from the past into the present.

What is politics but persuading the public to vote for this and support that and endure these for the promise of those?

Many people have played themselves to death. Many people have eaten and drunk themselves to death. Nobody ever thought himself to death.

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.

Wherever there are beginners and experts, old and young, there is some kind of learning going on, some kind of teaching. We are all pupils and we are all teachers.

A very wise old teacher once said: I consider a day's teaching wasted if we do not all have one hearty laugh.

A teacher must believe in the value and interest of his subject as a doctor believes in health.

He meant that when people laugh together, they cease to be young and old, master and pupils, jailer and prisoners. They become a single group of human beings enjoying its existence.

The relation between parents and children is essentially based on teaching.

If you do not actually like boys and girls, or young men and young women, give up teaching.

Many of the twisted minds and crippled characters in the world were made by careless parents who kept their children away from knives and fires, but put permanent scars on their souls.

Memories lie slumbering within us for months and years, quietly proliferating, until they are woken by some trifle and in some strange way blind us to life.

And while the ice was melting to form a flood in which I threatened to drown I awoke one afternoon to find that my first northern winter had set.

I don’t think it’s right that I’m part of the problem. I can’t be part of the solution if I’m part of the problem

Lost is a mystery show, so I think that would be stripping the franchise of sort of its essential nature.

I have gained and lost the same 10 pounds so many times over and over again my cellulite must have deja vu!

All the classical genres are now ridiculous in their rigorous purity.

Alas, the spheres of truth are less transparent than those of illusion.

I don't need to worry about being idolised.

Read Blake or go to hell, that's my message to the modern world.

BEFORE I DISCOVERED THE miracles of science, magic ruled the world.