Blessings often give rise to injury, so be careful when things are going your way. Success may be achieved after failure, so don't just give up when you've been disappointed.

If those who give are conscious of their own generosity and those who receive feel indebted, they are no longer family but rather strangers doing business.

There is much meaning in the word endure. For example, when dealing with unstable human feelings and uneven pathways in life, without endurance to hold you up, you may fall into a pit in the brush.

Those who have come to an impasse should examine their original intentions; those who have succeeded should note where they are heading.

To notice people's deceptions yet not reveal it in words, to bear people's insults without showing any change of attitude-there is endless meaning in this, and also endless function.

If a poor house is well kept, or a poor girl well groomed, there is elegance if not beauty. If good people should come upon hard times, why should they immediately give up on themselves?

Human affairs are like a chess game. Only those who do not take it seriously can be called good players.

Valuing unusual conduct is not as good as being careful about ordinary actions.

Attention is the mind's feet; if you do not control your attention strictly, it runs into misleading pathways.

If the mind is illumined, there is clear blue sky in a dark room. If the thoughts are muddled, there are malevolent ghosts in broad daylight.

In dealing with good people one should be magnanimous; in dealing with bad people one should be strict. In dealing with average people one should combine magnanimity and strictness.

Why wait for your happiness to come from your future blessings, when this moment already has all you need to live happily?

Dare to live with yourself

Always eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or bed- no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters in your skull.

How we [Americans] move [on climate] will determine the international direction. To lead, we must act.

I forget the name of the place; I forget the name of the girl; but the wine was Chambertin.

Fame is fleeting, and you can't get caught up in it. Signing autographs, taking pictures, and being nice to people is a small price to pay for the upside that comes with this.

With its brutal excesses and reliance on snitches and finks as informants, I don't think it's far off-kilter to describe the modern-day drug war as oddly similar to the Salem witch trials.

Conquering the world and changing it, I do not think it can succeed.

I think of the Sixties as being every man for himself.

I understand the concept of optimism. But I think with me what you get is a lack of cynicism.