“One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.”

Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others.

We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability.

Arguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp unless fixed there by imagery and style.

These inventors were elevating the formulation of entrepreneurial ideas to the status of a visionary activity. Though forced to justify their efforts in the pragmatic language of venture capital, they were at heart utopian thinkers intent on transforming the world.

In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer’s words, to turn pain into knowledge.

How do the stems connect to the roots?’ ‘Where is the mist coming from?’ ‘Why does one tree seem darker than another?’ These questions are implicitly asked and answered in the process of sketching.

As victims of hurt, we frequently don’t bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.

There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.

Socrates, on being insulted in the marketplace, asked by a passerby, “Don’t you worry about being called names?” retorted, “Why? Do you think I should resent it if an ass had kicked me?

Although I don’t believe in God, Bach’s music shows me what a love of God must feel like.

When I see someone like Richard Dawkins, I see my father. I grew up with that. I’m basically the child of Richard Dawkins.

The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other’s smartphone.

William James once made an acute point about the relationship between happiness and expectation. He argued that satisfaction with ourselves does not require us to succeed in every endeavour.

Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.

One’s doing well if age improves even slightly one’s capacity to hold on to that vital truism: “This too shall pass.

Bad art might be defined as a series of bad choices about what to show and what to leave out.

Wine is an appropriate article for mankind, both for the healthy body and for the ailing man.

The dignity of a physician requires that he should look healthy, and as plump as nature intended him to be; for the common crowd consider those who are not of this excellent bodily condition to be unable to take care of themselves.

I try to be regimented and try to stay healthy and work out and eat properly and go to sleep. And not get too caught up in the industry in my regular life, so I can save all my expression and energy for my art.

The physician must have at his command a certain ready wit, as dourness is repulsive both to the healthy and the sick.

The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend.

I guess anything in excess is no good for you, even things that are supposed to be healthy.

Protecting vital sources of renewal – unscathed marshes, healthy reefs, and deep-sea gardens – will provide hope for the future of the Gulf, and for all of us.

Sharks are beautiful animals, and if you’re lucky enough to see lots of them, that means that you’re in a healthy ocean.