The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.

A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread.

It's a fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride in order to do so.

Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.

Hope is a risk that must be run.

Suicide only really frightens those who are never tempted by it and never will be, for its darkness only welcomes those who are predestined to it.

Faith is not a thing which one loses, we merely cease to shape our lives by it.

...the most dangerous shortsightedness consists in underestimating the mediocre.

You owe it to everyone you love to find pockets of tranquility in your busy world.

Civilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses.

What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.

Whether you think you can, or think you can't - you're right.

When you employ HUMOR, you create a friendly, relaxed buying atmosphere.

I laugh because your pain is amusing.

I grew up in New York City, where we played highly unorganized sports: stick ball, stoop ball, and the occasional game of baseball with no adult supervision.

I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at creation.

Evil, as evil, can never be chosen; and though evil is often the effect of our own choice, yet we never desire it but under the appearance of an imaginary good.

It's not worth getting into the bullshit to see what the bull ate.

I'll long remember the crestfallen look of a pious student when I told him the faculty of a divinity school he planned to attend included a large number of avowed atheists.

If you want to reach the infinite, then explore every aspect of the finite.

A reporter is never put off by somebody not wanting to be interviewed.