Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.

Every era of renaissance has come out of new freedoms for peoples. The coming renaissance will be greater than any in human history, for this time all the peoples of the earth will share in it.

Somehow I had learned from Thoreau, who doubtless learned it from Confucius, that if a man comes to do his own good for you, then must you flee that man and save yourself

Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked.

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write.

music is not technique and melody, but the meaning of life itself, infinitely sorrowful and unbearably beautiful.

We learn as much from sorrow as from joy, as much from illness as from health, from handicap as from advantage and indeed perhaps more.