“The calmer thought is not always the right thought, just as the distant view is not always the truest view.”

I find nothing so singular to life as that everything appears to lose its substance the instant one actually grapples with it.

There is great incongruity in this idea of monuments, since those to whom they are usually dedicated need no such recognition to embalm their memory; and any man who does, is not worthy of one.

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.

Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.

We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.

Oh, for the years I have not lived, but only dreamed of living.

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.

Eager souls, mystics and revolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams; but evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow of a dream.

There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole of life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity.

We go all wrong by too strenuous a resolution to go right.

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

What other dungeon is so dark as one’s own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one’s self!

Generosity is the flower of justice.

Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love.

Happiness is like a butterfly.

There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.

Be a calm beholder of what is happening around you.

Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.

Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it.

Surveys like this are also conducted by other countries. We should handle this calmly under international law.

The world is a great ocean, upon which we encounter more tempestuous storms than calms.

You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

Japan will calmly proceed with its activities in line with international law.

I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.