On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.

Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.

I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

I am absolutely my own biggest critic.

Fear is the mother of morality.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal.

And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren’t any other people living in the world.

Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one.

Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

So let’s be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

Vanity is great motivation, to be fair.

Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.

Of course, like anybody I repeat myself endlessly, but I don’t know that I’m doing it, usually.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

When you start to realise how much of what you’ve constructed of yourself is based on deception and lies, that is a horrifying realisation.

I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.

You have to just make the choices you make in life. I made the choices I made because I believed they were right for me.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

The human race is governed by its imagination.

I’ve always felt quite singular, even as a child. That I must stay on track to keep my purpose.

Nature abhors annihilation.

No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that, everyone’s had enough of me to last a month.

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame.

When one has the feeling of dislike for evil, when one feels tranquil, one finds pleasure in listening to good teachings; when one has these feelings and appreciates them, one is free of fear.

I think beating myself up sometimes and knowing I am not happy when I do it makes me work harder to do a good job.

I already am a product.

Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

Secretly we’re all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be.

The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.

There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.

I need one of those baby monitors from my subconscious to my consciousness so I can know what the hell I’m really thinking about.

It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.

A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.

In this business, by the time you realize you’re in trouble, it’s too late to save yourself. Unless you’re running scared all the time, you’re gone.

He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing.

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge.

I just really believe people have to get hungry. I think maybe what we need to do, instead of trying to stuff our beliefs down people’s throats, is just pray for them to really be hungry and to see their neediness.

I’m very, very serious – I’m serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

Everyone knows nowadays that people ‚have complexes‘. What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.

Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot conceal himself!

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

My body is quite tiny, but a lot of the emotions I feel are pretty explosive. They have to come out.