I know that you don't believe it, but indeed, life will bring you through. You will live it down in time. What you need now is fresh air, fresh air, fresh air!

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.

Sleep, where in the waste is the wisdom?

My dad keeps joking about sneaking into my grandparents' house and switching out their HBO for PBS so they think I'm on 'Downton Abbey.

A leader's most important decisions are about people. Who do you put in which jobs? How long do you leave them in a job?

Affectations can be dangerous.

I spend my whole life trying to put up a front to prevent people from seeing certain parts of me. Weirdly, when I go to write, I feel like I have to expose it, almost compulsively.

Word-of-mouth is powerful, trusted, and cheap.

I would rather marry a good man, a man of mind, with a hope and bright prospects ahead for position, fame and power than to marry all the houses, gold and bones in the world.

It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view.

Just as the child must trust his mother, the white belt must believe in the good will of his instructor. There will be a time for questioning, but for now he must focus and train.

The consumerist culture insists that swearing eternal loyalty to anything and anybody is imprudent, since in this world new glittering opportunities crop up daily.