If you would know contentment, let your deeds be few.

Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.

The wise man belongs to all countries, for the home of a great soul is the whole world.

Everywhere man blames nature and fate yet his fate is mostly but the echo of his character and passion, his mistakes and his weaknesses.

Life unexamined, is not worth living.

Our sins are more easily remembered than our good deeds.

The pride of youth is in strength and beauty, the pride of old age is in discretion.

More men have become great through practice than by nature.

The brave man is not only he who overcomes the enemy, but he who is stronger than pleasures. Some men are masters of cities, but are enslaved to women.

My enemy is not the man who wrongs me, but the man who means to wrong me.

The word of a cat is not to be relied upon.

I call the discourse of power any discourse that engenders blame, hence guilt, in its recipient.

Some of the greatest blues music is some of the darkest music you've ever heard.

You have to see human rights as an all-embracing concept. It could be something that would unite the world, if it could only be seen in that light.

I was actually going to law school in 1972.

There isn't a story written that isn't about blood and money. People and their relationship to each other is the blood, the family. And how they live, the money of it.

Hope and optimism have defined my political career, and I continue to be hopeful and optimistic about Canada. Young people have been a great source of inspiration for me.

You are never to lose sight of nature; the instant you do, you are all abroad, at the mercy of every gust of fashion, without knowing or seeing the point to which you ought to steer.

No one is dumb who is curious.

I've always gravitated towards opera, and the Royal Opera House is quite possibly the greatest opera house on earth.