When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each other. This feeling should make men and women use their best efforts to help their fellow travelers on the road, to make the path brighter and easier as we journey on. It should bring a closer kinship, a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy for the wayfarers who must live a common life and die a common death.

One cannot live through a long stretch of years without forming some philosophy of life.

I go to a better tailor than any of you and pay more for my clothes. The only difference is that you probably don't sleep in yours.

The fact that there is a general belief in a future life is no evidence of its truth

Do I need to argue to Your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty? That hatred only causes hatred; that if there is any way to soften this human heart which is hard enough at its best, if there is any way to kill evil and hatred and all that goes with it, it is not through evil and hatred and cruelty; it is through charity, and love, and understanding?

Autobiography is never entirely true. No one can get the right perspective on himself. Every fact is colored by imagination and dream.

Everything serious that he says is a joke and everything humorous that he says is dead serious.