Casting aspersions on those we love always does something to loosen our ties. We shouldn't maltreat our idols: the gilt comes off on our hands.

Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.

I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings.

It seems to me that I have always existed and that I possess memories that date back to the Pharaohs.

Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.

I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

Memories were fine but you couldn't touch them, smell them or hold them. They were never exactly as the moment was, and they faded with time.

Determinism gives you the freedom to do whatever you like.

Keats himself spoke about how Shakespeare was capable of erasing himself completely from the characters he had created. As an actor, that is what I'm trying to do.

Concentration of effort and the habit of working with a definite chief aim are two of the essential factors in success, which are always found together. One leads to the other.

So-called defense now absorbs sixty per cent of the national budget, and about twelve per cent of the Gross National Product.

When a man's life is at stake no delay is too long. [Lat., Nulla unquam de morte cunctatio longa est.]

The best answer to the extremists is to build a better world.

In life, have but one desire, one only--to love Jesus Christ with all your soul. Let that be the one fixed idea of your entire existence.

The only thing I wanted to do when I was a young naive kid was to become a New York stage actor.

The world has been made by fools that wise men may live in it.