“When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.”

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.

I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.

Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.

Sadness diminishes a man’s powers.

Freedom is self-determination.

The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.

In so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity.

A free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation, not on death, but on life.

Minds, however, are conquered not by arms, but by love and nobility.

Desire nothing for yourself, which you do not desire for others.

Nothing in Nature is random. A thing appears random only through the incompleteness of our knowledge.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

Doo-wop is special music to me because it’s so straightforward and melody-driven and captures emotions.

Whether it be a reggae song, rock song, a love song, the main thing was just to, whatever I was feeling, to try to capture that emotion.

It is one of the great troubles of life that we cannot have any unmixed emotions. There is always something in our enemy that we like, and something in our sweetheart that we dislike.

Painful as it may be, a significant emotional event can be the catalyst for choosing a direction that serves us – and those around us – more effectively. Look for the learning.

If you aren’t gonna say exactly how and what you feel, you might as well not say anything at all.

The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the ‘Living Infinite.

Since emotions are few and reasons are many (said the robot Giscard) the behavior of a crowd can be more easily predicted than the behavior of one person.

There is nothing so loathsome as a sentimental surrealist.