We should not call a city happy because it attracts masses of citizens from everywhere; a fortunate city is one in which the race of the original inhabitants is best preserved.

Regard as your most faithful friends, not those who praise everything you say or do, but those who criticize your mistakes.

Of all our possessions, wisdom alone is immortal.

Always when you are about to say anything, first weigh it in your mind; for with many the tongue outruns the thought.

Be gracious to all men, but choose the best to be your friends.

If you be a lover of instruction, you will be well instructed.

Guard yourself against accusations, even if they are false; for the multitude are ignorant of the truth and look only to reputation.

Conduct yourself towards your parents as you would have your children conduct themselves towards you.

Spend your leisure time in cultivating an ear attentive to discourse, for in this way you will find that you learn with ease what others have found out with difficulty.

But I marvel when I observe these men setting themselves up as instructors of youth who cannot see that they are applying the analogy of an art with hard and fast rules to a creative process

Oratory is good only if it has the qualities of fitness for the occasion, propriety of style, and originality of treatment, while in the case of letters there is no such need whatsoever.

Only those with whom you have bound karmic accounts, in the past life, will be able to live with you together.

Wherever you go, go with love.

I want to be known as unknown.

Taoism is the way of water. The most frequent element or symbol refered to in Lao Tzu's wrtings is the symbol of water.

Should we force science down the throats of those that have no taste for it ? Is it our duty to drag them kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century ? I am afraid that it is.

Self-respect is the best of all.

To get scared is something not in my personality.

I've been to unpretty places with the roles I've played, and I'm attracted to reckless abandon. I like being taken to the edge of my own abyss.

I like doom and gloom with a sense of humour. Maybe it's a Scottish thing, we like to undercut indulgence with a laugh.