“Life is given only once, and one wants to live it boldly, with full conscious and beauty.”

Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.

They say philosophers and wise men are indifferent. Wrong. Indifference is a paralysis of the soul, a premature death.

For God’s sake, have some self-respect and do not run off at the mouth if your brain is out to lunch.

The unhappy are egotistical, base, unjust, cruel, and even less capable of understanding one another than are idiots. Unhappiness does not unite people, but separates them.

I can only regard with bewilderment an educated man who is also religious.

Everything on earth is beautiful, everything — except what we ourselves think and do when we forget the higher purposes of life and our own human dignity.

Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.

When all is said and done, no literature can outdo the cynicism of real life; you won’t intoxicate with one glass someone who has already drunk up a whole barrel.

The more refined one is, the more unhappy.

When a person expends the least amount of motion on one action, that is grace.

The problem is that we attempt to solve the simplest questions cleverly, thereby rendering them unusually complex. One should seekthe simple solution.

What seems to us serious, significant and important will, in future times, be forgotten or won’t seem important at all.

Man will become better when you show him what he is like.

Just as I shall lie alone in the grave, so, in essence, do I live alone.

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.

When asked, “Why do you always wear black?”, he said, “I am mourning for my life.

One never accomplishes the will of God by breaking the law of God, violating the principles of God, or ignoring the wisdom of God.

There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

There is an ocean of pure vibrant consciousness inside each one of us.

Giving kids clothes and food is one thing, but it’s much more important to teach them that other people besides themselves are important and that the best thing they can do with their lives is to use them in the service of other people.

No one believed [the 1986 amnesty for illegal aliens] was tough enough on illegal immigration, and it didn’t give enough flexibility on future legal immigration.

One can win the attention and time and cooperation of even the most sought-after people by becoming genuinely interested in them.

It’s the hardest thing to be alone in being satisfied with what one’s done.

One’s better off alone, and yet there are so many things that are impossible to fathom on one’s own. In fact it’s a terrible business and the task is a hard one.