God does not send us despair in order to kill us; he sends it in order to awaken us to new life.

Within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

When you like someone, you like them in spite of their faults. When you love someone, you love them with their faults.

The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. The God's name is Abraxas.

I live in my dreams — that's what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That's the difference.

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.

Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.

No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

The one thing you've got to say about Columbia is that it has courses that are famous. It has alumni who come back and say it was the best thing they ever did.

Struggle is what it means to be alive and free.

Let us remember that all reforms are interdependent, and that whatever is done to establish one principle on a solid base, strengthens all.

I just didn't make music that you could sing with a big grin, still don't.

You can't build a reputation on what you're going to do. It's simple, fantasize, rehearse, then go out into the world and DO IT!

Seven years after becoming a lone parent, I feel qualified to look anyone in the eye and say that people bringing up children single-handedly deserve, not condemnation, but congratulation.

The original of morals lies with the thought that 'the community is more valuable than the individual' (Menschliches 2.1.89

They've a temper, some of them - particularly verbs, they're the proudest - adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs.

Twenty years from now, will we listen to Lady Gaga? No. She might think she is making a stand for the freaks and the weirdos. But they're not going to have any decent music to play, are they?