We care what happens to people only in proportion as we know what people are.

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

It's time to start living the life you've imagined.

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.

We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.

Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.

Everything about Florence seems to be colored with a mild violet, like diluted wine.

Excellence does not require perfection.

The Roman jurisprudence has the longest known history of any set of human institutions.

I'm yours for ever--for ever and ever. Here I stand; I'm as firm as a rock. If you'll only trust me, how little you'll be disappointed. Be mine as I am yours.

It's a complex fate, being an American, and one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe.

Any good is good enough.

As long as we still draw breath, we each have the power to bring change into the world.

The best of all leaders is the one who helps people so that eventually they don’t need him.

Power doesn't back up in the face of a smile, or in the face of a threat of some kind of nonviolent loving action. It's not the nature of power to back up in the face of anything but some more power.

One must learn how to be black in America.

I would have artists be convinced that the supreme skill and art in painting consists in knowing how to use black and white... because it is light and shade that make objects appear in relief.

I live for being with the people I love and to live as happily as possible.

Painting transports me into another dimension which, quite literally, refreshes parts of the soul which other activities can't reach.

I kind of realized I could sing, so I played around with that for a while. And that led me to acting in itself, which I came more passionate about by the age of 15.

Opinion is called the queen of the world; it is so, for when reason opposes it, it is condemned to death. It must rise twenty times from its ashes to gradually drive away the usurper.