“It’s almost impossible to read a fine thing without wanting to do a fine thing.”

I find out of long experience that I admire all nations and hate all governments

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do, Try to be better than yourself.

A man without words is a man without thought.

The craft or art of writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for the wordlessness.

If you understand each other you will be kind to each other.

It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.

The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.

I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.

This I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.

In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

Out of all this struggle a good thing is going to grow. That makes it worthwhile.

I know now why confusion in government is not only tolerated but encouraged. I have learned. Confused people can make no clear demands.

There’s a responsibility in being a person. It’s more than just taking up space where air would be.

And finally, in our time a beard is the one thing that a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus.

A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.

The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.

To do the impossible, you need to ignore the popular.

If you find it impossible to pray, hide behind your good Angel and charge him to pray in your stead.

If I did not simply live from one moment to another, it would be impossible for me to be patient, but I only look at the present, I forget the past, and I take good care not to forestall the future.

In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.

Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

The veneration, wherewith Men are imbued for what they call Nature, has been a discouraging impediment to the Empire of Man over the inferior Creatures of God. For many have not only look’d upon it, as an impossible thing to compass, but as something impious to attempt.

The savants will write excellent volumes. There will be laureates. But wars will continue just the same until the forces of the circumstances render them impossible.