It is not only useless, it is harmful, to believe in oneself until one truly knows oneself. And to know oneself means to accept our moments of insanity, of eccentricity, of childishness and blindness.

People who think they're generous to a fault usually think that's their only fault.

Happiness is a direction, not a place.

The art of listening needs its highest development in listening to oneself; our most important task is to develop an ear that can really hear what we're saying.

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.

It may be true that the weak will always be driven to the wall; but it is the task of a just society to see that the wall is climbable.

Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.