Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death.

You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.

It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late.

It is better to be first with an ugly woman than the hundreth with a beauty.

An Englishman is never afraid of being laughed at. He just thinks the other fellow is a fool. But Americans still can't risk anybody laughing at them.

you seem to grieve for what is not so ... and there is no need to let your heart run ahead into evils that may never come.

Now, five years is nothing in a man's life except when he is very young and very old... - Wang Lung