From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows.

The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.

The world will not be inherited by the strongest, it will be inherited by those most able to change.

Nothing exists for itself alone, but only in relation to other forms of life

Building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice.

A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there.

An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.

It is not the biggest, the brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest.

We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.

What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature!

In the war of magic and religion, is magic ultimately the victor? Perhaps priest and magician were once one, but the priest, learning humility in the face of God, discarded the spell for prayer.

In proportion as our own mind is enlarged we discover a greater number of men of originality. Commonplace people see no difference between one man and another.

Indeed you did your best...I hope that it may be long before you find yourself in such a tight corner again between two such terrible old men. ~ Gandalf to Pippin

Never, ever, sacrifice what you want the most, for what you want the most at that moment.

That's the thing about being an artist, you don't have to take anyone else's perspective into account. You can act as self-indulgent in your emotions as you want.

If we hope to go anywhere or develop ourselves in any way, we can only step from where we are standing. If we don't really know where we are standing... We may only go in circles.

If a man is devout, we accuse him of hypocrisy; if he is not, of impiety; if he is humble, we look on his humility as a weakness; if he is generous, we call his courage pride.

One thing I learned from his holiness the Dali Lama is the importance of humor.

I was, in my own eyes, a veritable James Bond — only younger, darker, and possibly better paid.

I'd describe myself as a pragmatist tinged with idealism.