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

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.

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 have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.

Apologies require taking full responsibility. No half-truths, no partial admissions, no rationalizations, no finger pointing, and no justifications belong in any apology.

A slap from an angel will make you wiserthan a kiss from the devil.

The happiness of most people is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things.

Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.

I learned five chords; I thought I knew it all.

Patriotism is the vital condition of national permanence.

Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain only, arise our pleasures, joy, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs, and tears.

I don't want people to know what is true all the time and that's what keeps the mystery.

You almost have to force yourself to stay in a vacuum to become different - if you really want to be different.

Men fall into a routine when they are tired and slack: it has all the appearance of activity with few of its burdens.