“Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.”

In war it does not matter who is right, but who is left.

Keep calm and carry on.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Never abandon life. There is a way out of everything except death.

It is better to do something than to do nothing while waiting to do everything.

Personally, I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

If you want to discover new oceans, you must first have the courage to leave shore.

They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival.

Good art wounds as well as delights. It must, because our defenses against the truth are wound so tightly around us. But as art chips away at our defenses, it also opens us to healing potentialities that transcend intellectual games and ego-preserving strategies.

Tantra is the hot blood of spiritual practice. It smashes the taboo against unreasonable happiness; a thunderbolt path, swift, joyful, and fierce. There is no authentic Tantra without profound commitment, discipline, courage, and a sense of wild, foolhardy, fearless abandon.

So, never be afraid. Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion, against injustice and lying and greed.

There’s always a backlash against progressive ideas.

Competitive individualism militates against the experience of community, and that lack of community is a centrally important factor in contemporaneous anxiety.

Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, this is me and the damned world can go to hell.

Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, “This is me and the world be damned!” Leaders have always been the ones to stand against the society – Socrates, Christ, Freud, all the way down the line.