Death is nothing to us: for that which is dissolved is without sensation; and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us.
Human misery is too great for men to do without faith.
In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides.
Nothing is sillier than this charge of plagiarism. There is no sixth commandment in art. The poet dare help himself wherever he lists, wherever he finds material suited to his work. He may even appropriate entire columns with their carved capitals, if the temple he thus supports be a beautiful one. Goethe understood this very well, and so did Shakespeare before him.
There is only one writer in whom I find something that reminds me of the directness of style which is found in the Bible. It is Shakespeare.
The more i get to know people, the more i like dogs.
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
The Greeks understood perfectly that if there were divine beings they are capricious, unkind, malicious mostly, temperamental, envious and mostly deeply unpleasant because that you can say well yes, all right, if there is going to be god or gods then you have to admit that they're very at the very least capricious. They're certainly not consistent. They're certainly not all loving.
I have to confess that I have so rarely experienced triumph that I cannot claim to know it well enough to judge, but it seems to be at best a momentary joy followed instantly by sadness, and, then, of necessity, by wariness.
Write from your heart, and God will take care of the rest.
Once I found professional happiness, it gave me time to think about other areas in my life in which I wasn't happy. The next obvious candidate for introspection was my marriage.