It is not death that a man should fear, but never beginning to live.

Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.

A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.

It's lonely to listen to the pleasure of others, not that I've made a habit of that kind of eavesdropping. There's joy and passion in the next room, in the next bed, but it's not yours.

I find it very difficult just to sit. I would love to learn how to do that with contentment.

We tend to think that employment is employment, and we don't ask the question: is this rewarding employment? Research establishes pretty clearly that typical notions of happiness - that more is better - really don't correspond to the way people think and feel.

One of my realizations is that if you revel over joy, you're going to ache over pain and get killed over hurt. Your span of feelings are going to go just as far one way as the other.