It would take me years of reading, thought, and experience to learn again that in this world limits are not only inescapable but indispensable.

People are fed by the food industry, which pays no attention to health, and are treated by the health industry, which pays no attention to food.

The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.

It may be that when we no longer know... which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary, but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread.

Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.... For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

We need better government, no doubt about it. But we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities.

You cannot save the land apart from the people, or the people apart from the land.

Unexpected wonders happen, not on schedule, or when you expect or want them to happen, but if you keep hanging around, they do happen.

Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.

I'm a poet, and I like my lies the way my mother used to make them.

The moral code of Heaven for both men and women is complete chastity before marriage and full fidelity after marriage.

Think only about what is holy. Empty your mind.

The idea of molding men means a lot to me.

If you want to know about Africa, read our literature - and not just 'Things Fall Apart,' because that would be like saying, 'I've read 'Gone with the Wind' and so I know everything about America.'

I am a revolutionary, so my son can be a farmer, so his son can be a poet.

We are eternal. All this pain is an illusion.

The ascent is the aim of your life and to perfect it is your job.

I didn't know there were so many ghosts in [New] York.

You can be a very charitable capitalist. Like [Nicola] Sarkozy was saying, we have to 'moralise capitalism', which for me is a contradiction in terms.