There is nothing more beautiful in this world than a healthy, wise old man.

In the West, the insane are so many that they are put in an asylum, in China the insane are so unusual that we worship them.

O wise humanity, terribly wise humanity! How inscrutable is the civilization where men toil and work and worry their hair gray to get a living and forget to play!

Probably the difference between man and the monkeys is that the monkeys are merely bored, while man has boredom plus imagination.

Let him cry whoever feels like crying, for we were animals before we became reasoning beings, and the shedding of a tear, whether of forgiveness or of pity or of sheer delight at beauty, will do him a lot of good.

Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.

We all have obligations and duties toward our fellow men. But it does seem curious enough that in modern neurotic society, men's energies are consumed in making a living and rarely in living itself. It takes a lot of courage for a man to declare, with clarity and simplicity, that the purpose of life is to enjoy it.