Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless.

Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.

We are so presumptuous that we think we can separate our personal interest from that of humanity, and slander mankind without compromising ourselves.

The shortness of life cannot dissuade us from its pleasures, nor console us for its pains.

The young suffer less from their own errors than from the cautiousness of the old.

You are not born for fame if you don't know the value of time.

The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.

The art of pleasing is the art of deception.

Action makes more fortune than caution.

Courage is adversity's lamp.

All grand thoughts come from the heart.

I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It's all a question of how I view my life.

The change from self-centeredness to human-centeredness is the key to peaceful existence.

Every society produces its own cultural conceits, a set of lies and delusions about itself that thrive in the face of all contrary evidence.

It doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.

As a costume designer, it's important to give each person his or her own personalized look.

Two friends, two bodies with one soul inspired.

Be wary of too much calm, particularly in your mid-fifties.

Jobs are created in the private sector. Not by the president or the government unless they're government jobs.

You just do the things that you love and see if other people can like them too.

I would say that when I write prose I'm a more socially responsible person. I'm much more a citizen of the world. But the instability of the poetry, the emotional jaggedness, is also me.