Which Quotes

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

As individuals and as a nation, we now suffer from social narcissism. The beloved Echo of our ancestors, the virgin America, has been abandoned. We have fallen in love with our own image, with images of our making, which turn out to be images of ourselves.

There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance.

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.

To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer.

The logs of wood which move down the river together Are driven apart by every wave. Such inevitable parting Should not be the cause of misery.

Legitimate use of violence can only be that which is required in self-defense.

Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.

Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged.

Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.

The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.

Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you will see that it is only when the laws are silent that the greatest actions appear.

There must be a world revolution which puts an end to all materialistic conditions hindering woman from performing her natural role in life and driving her to carry out man's duties in order to be equal in rights.

There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.

Everyone who knows me will know the truth, which is that my children come first in my life and that I would never harm any child.

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge.

Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.

The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It meets a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts that is something on which to pride yourself but poverty itself is romanticized by fools.

I think the sport of wrestling, which I became involved with at the age of 14... I competed until I was 34, kind of old for a contact sport. I coached the sport until I was 47. I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline I have to write.

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.