My American walking shoes are new, and my Oriental eyes are old.

My first wish is to be simple in my actions, truthful in my speech, honest in my opinions, and natural in my behavior. In other words, I want to be clean in mind, heart, and body.

Truth breeds power, and truth never perishes.

Ignorance and fear are twins whose mother is slavery and whose father is oppression, and the mentality of the whole family is that of slaves.

I give priority to up-bringing over education because the ultimate goal of up-bringing is morals, and we have a more urgent need for morals than for knowledge.

The religious fanatic drew a small circle and left me, the infidel, outside it. However, I, with the help of love, won over him - I drew a large circle and included him.

The West for me means ambition, the East contentment. My heart is ever in one, my soul in the other.

Fire and light compete today in the East. But there is a lot of green firewood in this fire, and there is a lot of smoke in that light.

Our Phoenician ancestors never left anything they undertook unfinished. Consider what they accomplished in their days, and the degree of culture they attained.

Self-reliance leads to intellectual independence. Each man must think for himself, must train the mind to think, must habituate the soul to observe and analyze.

Breathless and unharmed, we emerge from the mazes of metaphysics and psychology where man and the soul are playing hide-and-seek.

Confidence is not what others think about you, it's what you think about yourself

I used to believe that culture was “soft, ” and had little bearing on our bottom line. What I believe today is that our culture has everything to do with our bottom line, now and into the future.

Something draws you... An impatience with your own ignorance.

I try to take everyone's head off, to tell the truth.

Rock'n'roll will never go away completely because it's so fundamentally attractive.

There are men whom you will never dislodge from an opinion, except by taking possession of it yourself.

Apparently vodka helps flowers last longer when they're dying. But you can put vodka in anything and it'll make it better.

I miss the days when faith was discussed in public and not the most intimate details of our personal lives.

The only reason to write a new song is because you're tired of the old ones.

I long for typical days, but rarely get them any more.