I swear to you that to think too much is a disease, a real, actual disease.

A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.

The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key.

But man is a fickle and disreputable creature and perhaps, like a chess-player, is interested in the process of attaining his goal rather than the goal itself.

I am alone, I thought, and they are everybody.

It is a law of nature that every decent man on earth is bound to be a coward and a slave

I will put up with any mockery rather than pretend that I am satisfied when I am hungry.

For though your mind is active enough, your heart is darkened with corruption, and without a pure heart there can be no full or genuine sensibility.

Man is fond of reckoning up his troubles, but does not count his joys.

What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning...

Man only likes counting his grief, he doesn't count his happiness. But if he were to count properly, he'd see that there's enough of both lots for him.

Read history, works of truth, not novels and romances

In fiction: we find the predictable boring. In real life: we find the unpredictable terrifying.

I have not the smarts or patience for political office.

We feel pain for every Syrian victim.

nothing she did or said was quite what she meant but still her life could be called a monument shaped in a slant of available light and set to the movement of possible music

Being a parent is not easy, but speaking for myself, it's a wonderful blessing and the most rewarding job I've ever had.

The tree that growes slowly, keepes it selfe for another.

I think it was so unfair that people attacked Freida Pinto for being an Indian, playing a Palestinian.

I feel like the places where I like to live, or study, or visit are places where people's differences are celebrated rather than just tolerated.

It could be construed that the reason I wouldn't wish to live in England is the immigration explosion. And that's not true at all.