“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.”

Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; their opinion is made up of consciousness of their own actions, and ignorance of the causes by which they are determined.

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.

Having a different opinion doesn’t mean you are wrong.

So you’re a little weird? Work it! A little different? OWN it! Better to be a nerd than one of the herd!

It’s dedicating yourself to your craft. Spending thousands of hours in a studio learning how to write a song, learning how to play different chords, training yourself to sing. You know, to get better and better.

And lot of Asian audiences and reporters don’t like me to act as a bad guy. But I think I want to become an actor, I want to try different way.

Minds ripen at very different ages.

Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.

A Christian in the world is one thing, and the world in a Christian is quite another thing. A ship in the water is all right, but when the water gets in the ship, it is quite a different thing.

Most of us know about God, but that is quite different from knowing God.