Mediocrity in life is acceptable only when one excels at it.

Time and I have quarrelled. All hours are midnight now. I had a clock and a watch, but I destroyed them both. I could not bear the way they mocked me.

For every drop of water you waste, you must know that somewhere on earth someone is desperately looking for a drop of water!

The tool of every self-portrait is the mirror. You see yourself in it. Turn it the other way, and you see the world .

There is no great danger to politics in the desire for certainty at any price.

How is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world I never knew?

I always feel like there's more. I think that's just a mindset you're supposed to have.

I move, therefore I am.

What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses?

Of all the unbearable nuisances, the ignoramus that has traveled is the worst.

In order to succeed in it (prayer), it should be done when we first awaken, when our whole being is calm and recollected. We need to make our meditation before anything else.