“One of the most powerful of all our passions is the desire to be admired and respected.”

Dogmatism is the greatest of mental obstacles to human happiness.

There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3 parts dead.

It’s easy to fall in love. The hard part is finding someone to catch you.

I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive.

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of great fear.

Your writing is never as good as you hoped, but never as bad as you feared.

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives’ mouths.

Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.

Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

People have to have a desire within themselves to know who they are and the reason why they are in this body.

I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect.

I just have a desire not to judge and view things compassionately.

Acting runs through my blood. There is some sort of creative desire to express myself and I would need that outlet. Otherwise I would be a nightmare to live with.

I have indeed – praise be to God – attained my desire in this world, which was to travel through the earth, and i have attained in this respect what no other person has attained to my knowledge.

There’s a desire in me to express something – to match what I hear in my head.

For once I want to be something that lasts.

Free is a man who has no desires.