I have tried sedulously not to laugh at the acts of man, nor to lament them, nor to detest them, but to understand them.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides.

Reason connot defeat emotion, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion.

Nothing in nature is by chance... Something appears to be chance only because of our lack of knowledge.

The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.

Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.

I'm sorry. I use my rapier wit to hide my inner pain.

there is no healthier drug than creativity.

But every spiteful word she ever wrote him was effortless love clenched in her fists. Her heart screaming for stability in this fiery game of desire.

If all was told, supposing there lived a person who could tell all, there would be no mysteries left, and the would be very bad. Man cannot live without mystery. He had a great need of it.

The meat smelt rank and was very tough, the soup was greasy and of a curious flavour, but it was a wonderful meal after all these hungry weeks.

I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. It's greed, plain and simple.

He that cannot possibly mend his own case will do what he can to impair another's.

I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke, That hath but on hole for to sterten to.

Yes, even amongst wiser militants, how many wounds have been given, and credits slain, for the poor victory of an opinion, or beggarly conquest of a distinction.

Brains without competitive hearts are rudderless.