The discipline in your life should be one determined by your own desires and your own needs, not put upon you by society or authority.

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

An Honest politician will not be tolerated by a democracy unless he is very stupid ... because only a very stupid man can honestly share the prejudices of more than half the nation.

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.

We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one which we preach, but do not practice, and another which we practice, but seldom preach.

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case.

Read as widely and as deeply as you can. You have to be a reader before you can be a writer.

No other animal on earth has portrayed such a disregard for life than mankind.

A revolution is interesting insofar as it avoids like the plague the plague it promised to heal.

The countdown reached ten seconds and I could almost hear an invisible crescendo of stirring background music. 'Anchors aweigh!' Five, four, three, two, one... and we had ignition!

There is always a gap between conception and execution. We keep writing in the burning hope of closing that gap before we die.

To some Softball is a game; to others it's Life.

Music can shoot through the musician like lightening through the sky if that music is unobstructed by thoughts.

You need bad things to make good things. It’s like with farming— if you want to grow a good crop, you need a lot of manure.

We are entering a new world in which we can choose to follow our own steps, not those that society forces us to take.

Sometimes art seems to be something very sublime, and, as you say, something sacred.