“I’m no longer prepared to accept what people say and what’s written in books. I must think things out for myself, and try to find my own answer.”

Bigger things than the State will fall, all religion will fall.

Poetry is to hold judgment on your soul.

I hold that man is in the right who is most closely in league with the future.

Take the life-lie away from the average man and straight away you take away his happiness.

There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt.

Oh, law and order! I often think it is that that is at the bottom of all the misery in the world.

Look into any man’s heart you please, and you will always find, in every one, at least one black spot which he has to keep concealed.

So to conduct one’s life as to realize oneself-this seems to me the highest attainment possible to a human being. It is the task of one and all of us, but most of us bungle it.

There is so much falsehood both at home and at school. At home one must not speak, and at school we have to stand and tell lies to the children.

A party is like a sausage machine, it grinds up all sorts of heads together into the same baloney.

It was then that I began to look into the seams of your doctrine. I wanted only to pick at a single knot; but when I had got that undone, the whole thing raveled out. And then I understood that it was all machine-sewn.

It’s not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that walks in us. It’s all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can’t get rid of them.

A forest bird never wants a cage.

It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.

A friend married is a friend lost.

Most critical fault-finding, when reduced to its essentials, simply amounts to reproach of the author because he is himself — thinks, feels, sees, and creates, as himself, instead of seeing and creating in the way the critic would have done.

It fills me with joy to know that we can pursue these answers. It is an astonishing thing that we are — you and I are one of the ways the universe knows itself.

Think how fortunate we are to know this much. But think also of all that’s yet to be discovered. Here’s hoping the deep answers to the deep questions-from the nature of consciousness to the origin of life-will be found in not too much more time.

I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never plotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand.

A lot of people question my image and why I do what I do, and the answer is because this is how I want to present myself.

I am not talking about selfishness or self-interest. When I ask, What will make you happy?, I mean, What way of loving others feels right for you? Choose a way of loving that makes you happy, and your efforts will be play rather than work.

Don’t think that she is one of those rude women of whom there are so many-on the contrary, she is utterly courteous and pleasant. If you greet her, she will answer you right away and converse with you!

We don’t have all the answers … as we get older, our bodies need repair.

She is scared to love again, because people change their minds. She is scared to love again, because people leave with no answers, and she is sick of thinking it’s because of her.