“It is easier to put people in chains than to remove them if the chains bring prestige, said George Bernard Shaw.”

To abstain from politics is in itself a political attitude.

It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.

Mystery is never more than a mirage that vanishes as we draw near to look at it.

A man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a certain sex; it goes without saying that he is a man.

That’s what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.

Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female — whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.

Today, however, we are having a hard time living because we are so bent on outwitting death.

He reflected. ‘I know a lot of different kids of people; what I want is to show each of them how the others really are. You hear so many lies!

It is dreadful to think that behind me my own past is no longer anything but shifting darkness.

Society cares about the individual only in so far as he is profitable. The young know this. Their anxiety as they enter in upon social life matches the anguish of the old as they are excluded from it.

Death itself does not frighten me; it is the jump I am afraid of.

The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project.

Every war, every revolution, demands the sacrifice of a generation, of a collectivity, by those who undertake it.

That the child is the supreme aim of woman is a statement having precisely the value of an advertising slogan.

Youth and what the Italians so prettily call stamina. The vigor, the fire, that enables you to love and create. When you’ve lost that, you’ve lost everything.

You said something very true the other day: that for us, nudity begins with the face.

It’s worth remembering that in 1965, something like 20% of Americans were against the war. Something like 70% were for the war. So, it wasn’t a popular or an easy thing to do.

I liked sports but I never really had the confidence. I was always coordinated and it came easy to me, but I didn’t have the confidence to go along with the physical skill.

I wanted to be great. And I loved Nashville, so that made it easy. I loved the music business. It made it easy for me to stay and make a life here.

If happiness were easy, everybody would feel it all the time, and it wouldn’t seem like such an elusive prize.

I hope he’ll go nice and easy – caught in the covers or bowled middle stump. I just hope he doesn’t get his pads in the way or his bat’s wide enough to get a thin edge [on Steve Waugh’s last innings]

The degree of notoriety I have is fine and easy. There’s nothing hysterical about it.

We break the rules, but it’s mostly because we don’t know what the rules are. It’s easy for us to go to certain places, so I’m not surprised that a lot of people were amused by my songwriting style.

However, nothing improves by accident, it requires conscious attention. When you are being bombarded by negatives, improvement, growth and success are easy to forget.