“After your death, you will be what you were before your birth.”

Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are the tormented souls.

Treat a work of art like a prince; let it speak to you first.

We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

One should use common words to say uncommon things.

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.

The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it.

Wealth is like seawater; the more we drink, the thirstier we become, and the same is true of fame.

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

A sense of humor is the only divine quality of man.

The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.

We seldom speak of what we have but often of what we lack.

Animals hear about death for the first time when they die.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

Certain, when I was born, so long ago, Death drew the tap of life and let it flow; And ever since the tap has done its task, And now there’s little but an empty cask.

Like the lotus flower that is born out of mud, we must honor the darkest parts of ourselves and the most painful of our life’s experiences, because they are what allow us to birth our most beautiful self.

We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be.

Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth.

Jesus was born and baptized that by his suffering he might purify the water.

It was to a virgin woman that the birth of the Son of God was announced. It was to a fallen woman that his resurrection was announced.

I was born lucky, and I have lived lucky. What I had was used. What I still have is being used. Lucky.

Winners are not born, they are self-made.