What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions, but don't we just as often draw the wrong ones?

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

To read means to borrow; to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.

Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.

He who understands the wise is wise already.

They shall arrive in a murmurAnd shall disappear into fog and earth

Mindset is what separates the best from the rest.

The soul is like a caged bird, it waits for the right person to open the door and set it free.

Of all the possible pathways of disorder, nature favors just a few.

For me, the greatest hurdle to success has always been failure.

Having worked for him in the nuclear weapons policy business, I can tell you that President Reagan was committed to assuring the effectiveness of our nuclear deterrent.

I'm not looking to lose anything. I'm looking to continue making movies.

I have been a huge fan of America, as I find their way of life there is pretty unique, and I have enjoyed a lot of good times over there.

Half of art is accident, but there is no accident without free experiment.

Art has no immediate future, because all art is collective and there is no more collective life.