“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

There is no past we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternal now that builds and creates out of the past something new and better.

The intelligent man finds everything laughable, the sensible man hardly anything.

The suffering may be moral or physical; and in my opinion it is just as absurd to call a man a coward who destroys himself, as to call a man a coward who dies of a malignant fever.

Doubt can only be removed by action.

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.

The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.

Love does not dominate; it cultivates.

Everybody wants to be somebody, but nobody wants to grow.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him, he must regard himself as greater than he is.

He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

To be loved for what one is, that is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him; their own selves, their version of him.

Night is the other half of life, and the better half.

Behaviour is a mirror in which every one displays his own image.

None of Us is as Good as All of Us.

If we only obey those rules that we think are just and reasonable, then no rule will stand, for there is no rule that some will not think is unjust and unreasonable.

That propaganda is good which leads to success, and that is bad which fails to achieve the desired result. It is not propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

Life, in a sense, is living and surviving. And all that makes for living and surviving is good. He who follows the fact cannot go astray, while he who has no reverence for the fact wanders afar.

I am one of those people who isn’t great at anything, but I’m pretty good at most things.

You ever be having a really good dream, and then, uh- right in the middle of the dream you wake up, right in the best part of the dream? And there you are, back in your stinkin’ life again? Man, that’s rough, eh?

War is hell. Hollywood fantasizes about it and makes it look good; war sucks.