All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.
You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.
If we would read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each man’s life a sorrow and a suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
Even the conviction of sin is too presumptuous for a human being. It implies that you know more about what should be happening in the world than you in fact do know. We’re so limited that to be that persuaded that we’re sinful is a presumptuous act. So, I don’t feel like feeling guilty because I don’t know that much about it. For all I know, I’m very good.
It matters immensely. The slightest sound matters. The most momentary rhythm matters. You can do as you please, yet everything matters.
The composer Stravinsky had written a new piece with a difficult violin passage. After it had been in rehearsal for several weeks, the solo violinist came to Stravinsky and said he was sorry, he had tried his best, the passage was too difficult, no violinist could play it. Stravinsky said, “I understand that. What I am after is the sound of someone trying to play it.”
The being we do not know is an infinite being; he may arrive, and turn our anguish and our burden to dawn in our arteries.
Be a lamp unto yourself.
i can’t go on . . . i really can’t go on i swear i can’t go on so i guess i’ll get up and go on.
All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.
Burke is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.
One’s own self is well hidden from one’s own self; of all mines of treasure, one’s own is the last to be dug up.
Whoever wants to fight lies and ignorance today, whoever wants to speak the truth, must surmount at least five difficulties. He must have the courage to speak the truth when it is everywhere stifled, the intelligence to recognize it when it is everywhere hidden, the art to make it manageable like a weapon, the judgement to choose who will know how to make it effective, and finally enough guile to make them understand it.
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
Psychology is nothing but a history which persists in us because we have not been able to rise from it.
Don’t wait for some miracle to be performed on you from without, lifting you above your fears and doubts and self-centeredness. You help God from within by turning in outgoing love to others, and miraculously your fears and doubts and self-centeredness will vanish. The miracle starts within, not from without.
The game isn’t over till it’s over.
If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.
If my film makes one more person feel miserable, I feel I’ve done my job.
