“you must not use wood to put out the fire.”

prophecies do not alter fate, only confirm it.

What harm is there in dreaming, if it eases pain? What good is reality, if it blots out hope? Can a man’s mind be washed without bleaching his soul?

to ask for anything of consequence from friends who cannot refuse is uncivilized.

Principles have a way of yielding to power.

The young see what they wish to see. The old see what they do not wish.

Like most Chinese, I am basically a fatalist – too sophisticated for religion and too superstitious to deny the gods.

If mortals wait until the gods remake the world to their liking to be happy, they are already in hell.

You can’t use anxiety to deal with your anxiety it only makes you more anxious.

We never use the condition of the footballs as an excuse. We play with whatever or kick with whatever we have to use and that’s the way it is.

The wielders of power did not speak for it, nor did they naturally serve it. Their interest was to use and develop power, no less natural and necessary than liberty but more dangerous.

In normal life, ‘simplicity’ is synonymous with ‘easy to do,’ but when a chef uses the word, it means ‘takes a lifetime to learn.’

You can’t just have a clean public space – you also have to have people willing to use it, and something that will draw them in.

The best approach here, if at all possible, is to use supervisory and regulatory methods to restrain undue risk-taking and to make sure the system is resilient in case an asset-price bubble bursts in the future.

An idea doesn’t count if you can’t use it

Pride causes us to use our gifts as though they came from ourselves, not benefits received from God, and to usurp our benefactor’s glory.