“The human mind prefers to be spoon-fed with the thoughts of others, but deprived of such nourishment it will, reluctantly, begin to think for itself – and such thinking, remember, is original thinking and may have valuable results.”

One must accept the fact that we have only one companion in this world, a companion who accompanies us from the cradle to the grave – our own self. Get on good terms with that companion – learn to live with yourself.

Very few of us are what we seem.

Writing is a great comfort to people like me, who are unsure of themselves and have trouble expressing themselves properly.

I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming… suddenly you find – at the age of 50, say – that a whole new life has opened before you.

There is nothing more thrilling in this world, I think, than having a child that is yours, and yet is mysteriously a stranger.

Books are a habit-forming drug.

If you’ve had a happy childhood, nobody can take that away from you.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves they don’t give a damn.

There’s too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.

One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood.

Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.

Never tell all you know—not even to the person you know best.

Our weapon is our knowledge. But remember, it may be a knowledge we may not know that we possess.

Everybody said, “Follow your heart”. I did, it got broken.

What good is money if it can’t buy happiness?

He that climbs a ladder must begin at the first round.

We have within ourselves Enough to fill the present day with joy, And overspread the future years with hope.

In my end is my beginning.

In the beginning we must simplify the subject, thus unavoidably falsifying it, and later we must sophisticate away the falsely simple beginning.

Never, in all of the seventy billion humans who have walked this planet since the beginning of time has there been anyone exactly like you.

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

Where annual elections end where slavery begins.

Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics the greatest number have begun their career, by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing Demagogues, and ending Tyrants.