Giving alms is only a virtuous deed when you give money that you yourself worked to get.

When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody thinks about changing himself.

Once we're thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost, but it's only here that the new and the good begins.

An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life—becoming a better person.

Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know.

Men pray to the Almighty to relieve poverty. But poverty comes not from God's laws-it is blasphemy of the worst kind to say that. Poverty comes from man's injustice to his fellow man.

We are often unaware of the gradual decline and the erosion in our lives but not unaware of the gnawing feeling it brings.

There are different kinds of actors, and movie actors tend to be exceedingly precise and mechanical in a way that's really admirable for me to watch. You always learn from them.

When you're a little kid, you want the ball. You don't want to play defense. When you get the ball, basically you can do whatever you want.

I feel absolutely sorry for the person who can't genuinely get excited about his or her work.

Those with certain temperaments find no way to endure themselves except by striving towards going under.

No society ever seems to have succumbed to boredom. Man has developed an obvious capacity for surviving the pompous reiteration of the commonplace.

There is no policy too sensitive to question, and no subject so taboo that you cannot even mention it.

Let's be healthy big people. Everybody can't be a size 0 or 45, but let's be healthy.

France in August when you can travel through the entire country without encountering a single pesky Frenchman or being bothered with anything that's open for business.

Some of the best theorizing comes after collecting data because then you become aware of another reality.