The great charm of cats is their rampant egotism, their devil-may-care attitude toward responsibility, their disinclination to earn an honest dollar.

Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.

There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity.

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

I cannot imagine any boy of spirit who would not be delighted to play a drunkard even to vomiting in front of his Sunday school. Indeed, the vomiting might be the chief attraction of the role.

The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

A man must be obedient to the promptings of his innermost heart.

Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it.

Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.

The dog is a yes-animal. Very popular with people who can't afford a yes man.

What we most love is not what we know, but what knows us and draws us. . . . (78)

The higher man is distinguished from the lower by his fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune.

Anger becomes limiting, restricting. You can't see through it. While anger is there, look at that, too. But after a while, you have to look at something else.

You can argue with a philosopher, but you can’t argue with a good song. And I think I’ve got a few good songs.

I thought of how many places there are in the world that belong in this way to someone, who has it in his blood beyond anyone else's understanding.

It takes a spasm of love to write a poem.

I think Assange has been very courageous. I've also defended Bradley Manning. I think they've been tremendously courageous in telling the truth, and the public has the right to the truth.

No man that has ever lived has done a thing to please God--primarily. It was done to please himself, then God next.

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes

In man's brain the impressions from outside are not merely registered; they produce concepts and ideas. They are the imprint of the external world upon the human brain.