Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us.

Genius and virtue are to be more often found clothed in gray than in peacock bright.

Magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it. And, what is more, they find it everywhere.

The creative impulses of man are always at war with the possessive impulses.

No man should ever publish a book until he has first read it to a woman.

Better the fragrant herb of wit and a little cream of affability than all the pretty cups in the world.

It is not that the French are not profound, but they all express themselves so well that we are led to take their geese for swans.

Nothing is sadder than the consequences of having worldly standards without worldly means.

The man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man.

The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in an Orphic manner what everybody knows, and because he is silent people think he is making fun of them.

Once you have a point of view all history will back you up.

I'm crazy about ducks and swans and geese, so I don't eat foie gras. I try to eat organic.

I know what it feels like to carry a lot of weight in a society that's very image-conscious. It's a thin person's world, and we try to navigate within it without being made fun of.

... I shall go on making sublime and philosophical discoveries, and employing myself in deep, abstract studies.

Nothing is free. You got to pay to be in society. First you start with homework.

The proper focus of holiness is not on being set apart from something (i.e., the world), but on being set apart for something.

My mirror probes down to the heart. I write words on the forehead and around the corners of the mouth. My human faces are truer than the real ones.

Purity comes from Seva... it comes from selfless love.

Dancing is so physical and so athletic. I think it rings to the boy that is in my soul because you get to run and jump and climb and act as aggressively as you'd like.

In this world the one thing supremely worth having is the opportunity to do well and worthily a piece of work of vital consequence to the welfare of mankind.

Beautiful things happen in your life when you distance yourself from the negative things.