Your impact on the world is significant whether or not you are aware of it, and even whether or not you desire it.
I don't have principles. I have nerves.
Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth. I believe. . . that for someone who has read a lot of Dickens to shoot his like in the name of an idea is harder than for someone who has read no Dickens.
When the eye fails to find beauty-alias solace-it commands the body to create it, or, failing that, adjusts itself to perceive virtue in ugliness.
How delightful to find a friend in everyone.
The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even - if you will - eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with.
For darkness restores what light cannot repair.
The first reactions are often instinctive. So one of the first things we said was that the Chinese had no right to inspect the plane, and that we had a sovereign right to. I don't know what the legal position is, but it was surely psychologically absolutely the unwise thing to do.
Relax. Breathe in deep. Hold it. Let it out. Loosen your shoulders. Smile. Close your eyes. You'll be surprised at how many voices you'll hear, whispering sweet encouragement into your ear.
Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science.
I like Bach. I like Randy Newman.