The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides.

Reason connot defeat emotion, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion.

Nothing in nature is by chance... Something appears to be chance only because of our lack of knowledge.

The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.

Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.

Whenever she walked along the streets of Manhattan, she looked at all the different faces coming toward her and, despite their different features and colors, she regarded them all as Americans.

A man can never be truly free when he knows that he is neglecting his duties elsewhere.

If I quit having fun, then it's time for me to quit working.

Guilt is the very nerve of sorrow.

Prayer is a universal phenomenon in the soul-life of man. It is the soul's reaction to the terrors and joys, the uncertainties and dreams of life.

True leaders have so much power they are willing to give it away. Power is not a fixed, quantifiable sum; instead it is an unlimited abstraction which grows as it is shared.

I think the educational value is what comes first. I've always thought that the most effective tools we have for disseminating information, i.e. education, is television and film.

I want them poor and they deserve to be poor. You can't have capitalism without punishment.

To choose suffering makes no sense at all; to choose God's will in the midst of our suffering makes all the sense in the world.

Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.