“Miracles happen to those who believe in them.”

I am only a picture-taster, the way others are wine-or tea-tasters.

The average European does not seem to feel free until he succeeds in enslaving and oppressing others.

Life has taught me that it is not for our faults that we are disliked and even hated, but for our qualities.

Not what man knows but what man feels, concerns art. All else is science.

The artist, depicting man disdainful of the storm and stress of life, is no less reconciling and healing than the poet who, while endowing Nature and Humanity, rejoices in its measureless superiority to human passions and human sorrows.

Miracles happen to those who believe in them. Otherwise why does not the Virgin Mary appear to Lamaists, Mohammedans, or Hindus who have never heard of her.

From childhood on I have had the dream of life lived as a sacrament… the dream implied taking life ritually as something holy.

I would willingly stand at street corners, hat in hand, begging passerby to drop their unused minutes into it.

Art is mind and heart and touch as much and more than it is mere instrument, technique – without which however it cannot exist at all.

One can repent even of having repented.

You can parody and make fun of almost anything, but that does not turn the universe into a caricature.

I wonder whether art has a higher function than to make me feel, appreciate, and enjoy natural objects for their art value?

It makes me happy to encounter goodness, love of work, humane intelligence, and people no matter at what kind of job, be it ever so humble, or ever so exalted, who do it well and con amore.

Who will free me from hurry, flurry, the feeling of a crowd pushing behind me, of being hustled and crushed?

I would I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.

There was time for work, for play, for love, the confidence that if a task was not done at the appointed time, I easily could fit it into another hour. I used to take leisure for granted, as I did time itself.

I’m pretty optimistic about the future of rock… it will be back to composition as in classical music or jazz.

I don’t have any regrets because I’m very optimistic, and live each day as though it’s the last.

My parents said marrying was an optimistic thing to do in pessimistic times.

Stop being so optimistic, its getting on my nerves. No problem. Do you want me to be all gloom and doom or just shut up? Just shut up. Can do. Really? Doesn’t seem like it.

Always be looking for the opportunities, and always be optimistic about what you can do with that opportunity.

I’m an optimistic guy. I’m one of those big dreamers. I’m one of those kids with that annoying imagination.

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

I have an optimistic view of everything. You have to, otherwise you’d go nuts.