If tempted by something that feels 'altruistic,' examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!

If a grasshopper tries to fight a lawnmower, one may admire his courage but not his judgement.

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

I never learned from a man who agreed with me.

A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.

Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.

May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

Teddy shuddered. The idea of the sublime little bird being plucked from the sky, of its exquisite song being interrupted in full flight, was horrible to him.

I gotta friend who spends his life, stabbing my picture with a bowie knife. Dreams of strangling me with a scarf, when my name comes up he pretends to barf.

But down deep, at the molecular heart of life we're essentially identical to trees.

We do not need, and indeed never will have, all the answers before we act ... It is often through taking action that we can discover some of them.

The wise are not so much wiser than others as respecters of their own wisdom.

If you write enough, you begin to learn to do things. But in a way, you do start from zero each time.

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts.

Yes, but . . .” She hesitated, her gaze finally coming to me. “I survived because I fell in love.” With you was unspoken.

The mind has these four levels: physical, vital, buddhi, higher mind. The Supermind is far above these.

We [United States] are the only military superpower. We have no idea how long this is going to last, so we ought to get every bad guy we can and fix every problem we can.