Whatever affection we have for our friends or relations, the happiness of others never suffices for our own.

Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.

We are so presumptuous that we think we can separate our personal interest from that of humanity, and slander mankind without compromising ourselves.

The shortness of life cannot dissuade us from its pleasures, nor console us for its pains.

The young suffer less from their own errors than from the cautiousness of the old.

You are not born for fame if you don't know the value of time.

The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.

The art of pleasing is the art of deception.

Action makes more fortune than caution.

Courage is adversity's lamp.

Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless.

Western civilization is a loaded gun pointed at the head of this planet.

Rapping and singing are not two polar opposites. There's so much middle ground. And I think there's a lot of people who find that middle ground.

How much truth can a spirit bear, how much truth can a spirit dare? ... that became for me more and more the real measure of value.

There is nothing more practical than a good theory.

The best things are the most common.

A Yuppie is someone who believes it's courageous to eat in a restaurant that hasn't been reviewed yet.

I never know exactly where I'm going with a story, whether it's a short story or a novel. If I did I'd soon grow bored of it. The fun, for me, is in the finding out and the making sense of it.

What keeps us playing our parts and going round and round the three lower worlds is not a Divine dictate, but ourselves, our own will-to-live, which comes from within ourselves.

How do I respond to criticism? Critically. I listen to all criticism critically.

It's more important to do the right thing than to do things right.