Fanaticism, or, to call it by its milder name, enthusiasm, is only powerful and active so long as it is aggressive. Establish it firmly in power, and it becomes conservatism, whether it will or no.

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.

Fate loves the fearless.

The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers.

All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.

Light is the symbol of truth.

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.

The brain can be easy to buy, but the heart never comes to market.

Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.

The heart is the toughest part of the body. Tenderness is in the hands.

Sing to your mountains because as you sing, they are being cast into the sea.As you sing, the portals of heaven are opening.

Observation is a critical activity in the innovation process to understand the context of an issue from a human perspective.

The atheist . . . destroys the chimeras which afflict the human race, and so leads men back to nature, to experience and to reason.

OH, I LIKE smoking, I do. I smoke for my health, my mental health. Tobacco gives you little pauses, a rest from life. I don't suppose anyone smoking a pipe would have road rage, would they?

The decision to use the atom bomb on Japanese cities, and the consequent buildup of enormous nuclear arsenals, was made by governments, on the basis of political and military perceptions.

The greater the penalties laid on sellers in the black market... the higher the black market price.

People want to see me back in the ring. I think it is more of a drag lying around on the beach.

Mortification of the flesh has been held all the world over as a condition of spiritual progress.

One of my central maxims is how a major part of what a conductor tries to do is get a large group of people to agree on where "now" actually is.