Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

To read means to borrow; to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.

Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.

He who understands the wise is wise already.

Run to brilliance. Sprint to excellence. Soar to transcendence.

Every day is an opportunity to realise the wonder that exists in the world.

Advice is a form of Nostalgia

-What is nothing? I impetuously asked.-It is what you can see of your eyes without a mirror, was the answer.

Ah if the rich were rich as the poor fancy riches!

By all means examine the games of the great chess players, but don't swallow them whole. Their games are valuable not for their separate moves, but for their vision of chess, their way of thinking.

We didn't understand irony yet in the '80s; we just kind of existed at face value, so there was no nerd cool yet because the digital revolution was still in its infancy.

What is needed is to learn afresh, to observe, and to discover for ourselves the meaning of wholeness.

The avarice of the old: it's absurd to increase one's luggage as one nears the journey's end.

Directing television is really hard - it's so fast. You shoot an hour show in seven days.