The crown of life is neither happiness nor annihilation; it is understanding.

The things that one most wants to do are the things that are probably most worth doing.

Is this the final treachery of time, that the old become a burden upon the young?

This alone is to be feared - the closed mind, the sleeping imagination, the death of the spirit. The death of the body is to that, I think, a little thing.

Nature is not silent, and never was a name more derisively inappropriate than when we speak of these non-human creatures who hoot and crow and bray as the dumb animals.

A sense of humor is so handy, isn't it? It lets you see both sides of a question so that you never need do anything.

I am much perturbed by this business of sickness. Our bodies seem so easily to leap into the saddle where our minds should be. People who are ill become changelings.

We each live in a private, distorted, individual world - stars turning in space, warmed for a moment by each other's light, then lost in infinite distance.

it is the brevity of life which makes it tolerable; its experiences have value because they have an end.

I am fierce for work. Without work I am nothing.

There's never been a lack of men willing to die bravely. The trouble is to find a few able to live sensibly.

Rationality and calm self-determination were one of the great illusions of the universe... in the end, we were all ruled by our passions.

For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart.

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

If I'd thought, "I can't really play this instrument," I wouldn't have done it! But I didn't care, you know. I didn't care!

I carry my flute around everywhere I go and pull it out. It actually becomes a panacea for me, for things that go on around me. It really gives me relief and calmness, tranquility.

Incontrovertible is not a scientific word. Nothing is incontrovertible in science.

When you cry, you don't look very attractive; you look snotty and blotchy. People seem to manage to cry quite prettily these days, and to me, that smacks of not being very genuine.

The Hulk was the beginning of me, a platform as an actor to grow.

As a mentalist, perhaps only Orson Wells was in Jason's league. After a career in television, Randal has my endorsement. He's simply the best I've ever seen!

Probably the most useful thing I can do as secretary of state is to assist the president in adapting and renewing the transnational institutions that were created after World War II.