Boredom is an evil that is not to be estimated lightly. It can come in the end to real despair. The public authority takes precautions against it everywhere, as against other universal calamities.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

The worst thing in the world is having to go back to the dark you shook off.

My favorite animal is steak.

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

A lasting architecture has to have roots.

Watching a good actor is the best way to learn.

Well, there doesn't seem anything else for an ex-President to do but to go into the country and raise big pumpkins.

I'm not unfaithful, darling. I've plenty of faults but I'm very faithful. You'll be sick of me I'll be so faithful.

I prefer big Oprah. I know Oprah wants to be skinny Oprah, but her head is too gigantic to fit on a skinny body. She has to accept that, like Kirstie Alley, she was meant to be... ahm... voluptuous!

When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.

What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford to buy a hamburger?