It is easier to make a lady of a peasant-girl than a peasant-girl of a lady.

Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.

Each nationality contains its centre of happiness within itself, as a bullet the centre of gravity.

To think what is true, to sense what is beautiful and to want what is good, hereby the spirit finds purpose of a life in reason.

A poet is the creator of the nation around him, he gives them a world to see and has their souls in his hand to lead them to that world.

Those that embrace the entire universe with love, for the most part love nothing, but their narrow selves.

We live in a world we ourselves create.

Touch not the flute when drums are sounding around; when fools have the word, the wise will be silent.

What destiny sends, bear! Whoever perseveres will be crowned.

Brave is the lion tamer, brave is the world subduer, but braver is the one who has subdued himself.

All our science calculates with abstracted individual external marks, which do not touch the inner existence of any single thing

There are questions I'm still not wise enough to answer, just wise enough to no longer ask.

Would you approach a crazy person with a loaded gun? Well, that is exactly what you are doing with some police officers when you approach them.

There are two sides of corruption: 1. Those who feel and see the corruption because they are the victim of it 2. Those who pretend there is no corruption because they are profiting from it.

I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to his or her fellow human beings.

Surely the world we live in is but the world that lives in us.

In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.

My sons are coming out with music. Square Off, they're called.

When it works, anticipation is far more fulfilling than surprise, because we are reminded that a sunrise is precisely as magnificent as it is inevitable.

If you don't take chances, you can't do anything in life.

Be careful what you yearn for, because that which you desire most will either complete you or destroy you, and you don't get to choose.