Hell is the inability to love.

The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison.

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man ... just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.

Learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever.

People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.

It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise.

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.

Don’t be overwise; fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid - the flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again.

The most offensive is not their lying - one can always forgive lying - lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth - what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying.

The more profoundly we study this wonderful book [the Bible], and the more closely we observe its divine precept, the better citizens we will become and the higher will be our destiny as a nation.

Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.

A thorn in the flesh is nothing compared to a thorn in the conscience.

I call the language of political figures, pundits and administrators "the haute couture of language."

If you want to learn to swim you have to throw yourself in the water.

Never borrow sorrow from tomorrow.

Who bides his time tastes the sweet Of honey in the saltiest tear; And though he fares with slowest feet Joy runs to meet him drawing near.

Wars of small kingdoms and forgotten lands, what do chessmen dream of in the dark?

What is painting today? It's a discontinued thing, discontinued from anything serious that happened in the past.

I did not write about that kind of insecurity and anxiety between myself and my brothers, because my father was the dominant male figure as I was growing up in that home.