I've spent several years in Hollywood, and I still think the movie heroes are in the audience.
If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research.
It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous.
If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.
Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.
I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.
'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
As an enemy is made more fierce by our flight, so Pain grows proud to see us knuckle under it. She will surrender upon much better terms to those who make head against her.
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed, The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast.
The mind petrifies if a circle be drawn around it, and it can hardly be that dogma draws a circle round the mind.
All that's bright must fade, The brightest still the fleetest; All that's sweet was made But to be lost when sweetest.
Mary, I believed thee true, And I was blest in thus believing; But now I mourn that ever I knew A girl so fair and so deceiving.
Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.
Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.
Marriage is an Athenic weaving together of families, of two souls with their individual fates and destinies, of time and eternity - everyday life married to the timeless mysteries of the soul.
The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
This world is all a fleeting show, For man's illusion given; The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, Deceitful shine, deceitful flow, - There's nothing true but Heaven.
Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one.
In every man's heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty.
There is only one success ... to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it.
Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.
Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have.
There?s nothing is this world more instinctively abhorrent to me than finding myself in agreement with my fellow-humans.
Western society has accepted as unquestionable a technological imperative that is quite as arbitrary as the most primitive taboo: not merely the duty to foster invention and constantly to create technological novelties, but equally the duty to surrender to these novelties unconditionally, just because they are offered, without respect to their human consequences.
The test of maturity, for nations as well as individuals, is not the increase of power, but in the increase of self, self, self direction, and self transcendence. For in a mature society, man himself and not his machines or his organizations is the chief work of art.
Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for more assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance.
This is the epitaph I want on my tomb: "Here lies one of the most intelligent animals who ever appeared on the face of the earth.
He who knoweth the precepts by heart, but faileth to practice them, is like unto one who lighteth a lamp and then shutteth his eyes.
Property is unstable, and youth perishes in a moment. Life itself is held in the grinning fangs of Death, Yet men delay to obtain release from the world. Alas, the conduct of mankind is surprising.
Whoever benefits his enemy with straightforward intention that man's enemies will soon fold their hands in devotion.
Method is more important than strength, when you wish to control your enemies. By dropping golden beads near a snake, a crow once managed To have a passer-by kill the snake for the beads.
A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.