“Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.”

The world is my idea.

Faith is like love: it does not let itself be forced.

A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.

Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

Happiness consists of the frequent repetition of pleasure.

Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.

He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he does not attach much importance to his own thoughts.

Ordinary people merely think how they shall spend their time; a man of talent tries to use it.

Truth is most beautiful undraped.

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

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.

Each of us comes into life with fists closed, set for aggressiveness and acquisition. But when we abandon life our hands are open; there is nothing on earth that we need, nothing the soul can take with it.

When you follow your bliss a kind of track opens up, that’s always been there, waiting for you. And the life that you should be living, is the one that you will be living.

One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime.

Before you criticize others, remember, they may not have had the same opportunities in life as you have had.

I was within and without. Simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.

The spiritual life is a life beyond moods. It is a life in which we choose joy and do not allow ourselves to become victims of passing feelings of happiness or depression.

In every encounter we either give life or we drain it; there is no neutral exchange.

I have two passions in my life. One is to raise the awareness of the internment of Japanese-American citizens. My other passion is the theater.