Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they cannot get out and cause trouble.

A wealth of experience and wisdom doesn't have to be a dead giveaway to your increasing years. The spin you put on it is what will keep you young. Don't let it make you bitter. Learn from it, and let it make you better.

I am still determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions and not upon our circumstances

I guess that we all need freedom, we all have a reason why we are here, but the most annoying thing is that we're mostly lost in our way, we are mostly wrong about things around us, Which it drives us nowhere than somewhere.

She had always observed that she got on better with clever women than silly ones like herself; the silly ones could never understand her wisdom; whereas the clever ones - the really clever ones - always understood her silliness.

..it happens in all human affairs that we never seek to escape one mischief without falling into another. Prudence therefore consists in knowing how to distinguish degrees of disadvantage, and in accepting a less evil as a good.

If my doctor told me I only had five minutes to live, I’d probably change all the clocks in my house, because they’re all five minutes fast and I want to know exactly how much time I have left so I can use it wisely.

My father always used to say, "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument." Good sense does not always lie with the loudest shouters, nor can we say that a large, unruly crowd is always the best arbiter of what is right.

He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder.

There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in the rubbish.

Normalization takes place not because there is Western-ideology that normalizes third-world texts in any special way (other than the usual play with exoticism) but because this academic seeks to domesticate everything, even Marx.

I have met many Masters and most have an abundance of flaws and social failings. However, the one thing that separates them from the rest of us is their fearless ability to walk their own path regardless of the opinions of others.

Happiness is not to be found at the bottom of a bottle or from the tip of a needle; it is not to be found amidst a cloud of smoke or within a sugar-coated pill. If you look for it in these places, you will find naught but despair.

We gaze up at the same stars, the sky covers us all, the same universe encompasses us. What does it matter what practical system we adopt in our search for the truth? Not by one avenue only can we arrive at so tremendous a secret.

I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.