It was never the people who complained of the universality of human rights, nor did the people consider human rights as a Western or Northern imposition. It was often their leaders who did so.

It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.

Follow the man who seeks the truth; run from the man who has found it.

Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it.

Nothing is more powerful than individuals acting out of their own conscience.

Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.

Without commonly shared and widely entrenched moral values and obligations, neither the law, nor democratic government, nor even the market economy will function properly.

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

This is a confusing and uncertain period, when a thousand wise words can go completely unnoticed, and one thoughtless word can provoke an utterly nonsensical furor.

We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the seemingly impossible to become a reality.

There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight.

. . . you have no idea how many people there are in the world whose day could be made and their life changed for the better if someone would just look them in the eye, smile, and say, "Hello.

He sought...to transform the grief which looks down into the grave by showing it the grief which looks up to the stars.

Paige had a sadness that was so desperate that it could not yet turn into anger.

I don't know why I can't let the insults go, but I can't. I'm the product of every hurt that's ever been laid on me.

RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.

I went to a psychoanalyst. He explained things about my love life that I found very impressive... almost scary.

A language is the appearances of connections therefore language as in writing doesn't express anything: it creates.

Your life is your art.

The trouble is, we've been taught what to see and how to render what we see. If only we could be in the position of those men who did those wonderful drawings in Lascaux and Altimira!

Libraries keep the records on behalf of all humanity. the unique and the absurd, the wise and the fragments of stupidity.