Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act.

There are not fifty ways of fighting, there's only one, and that's to win. Neither revolution nor war consists in doing what one pleases.

Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.

The first duty of a leader is to make himself be loved without courting love. To be loved without 'playing up' to anyone - even to himself.

Genius is not perfected, it is deepened. It does not so much interpret the world as fertilize itself with it.

Man knows that the world is not made on a human scale; and he wishes that it were.

Always, however brutal an age may actually have been, its style transmits its music only.

Art is a revolt against fate.

War puts its questions stupidly, peace mysteriously.

Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act.

All art is a revolt against man's fate.

Opium teaches only one thing, which is that aside from physical suffering, there is nothing real.

And when man faces destiny, destiny ends and man comes into his own.

An art book is a museum without walls.

There is always a need for intoxication: China has opium, Islam has hashish, the West has woman.

Communism destroys democracy. Democracy can also destroy Communism.

To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less.

Then I despair... I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it always.

The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves is what I call hell.

The crucial discovery was made that, in order to become painting, the universe seen by the artist had to become a private one created by himself.

To the humblest among them, who may be listening to me now, I want to say that the masterpiece to which you are paying historic homage this evening is a painting which he has saved.

Art is a revolt against fate. All art is a revolt against man's fate.

Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk – and to act.

There are not fifty ways of fighting there is only one to be the conqueror.

Every great masterpiece is a purification of the world.

The world of art is not a world of immortality but of metamorphosis.

In the realm of human destiny, the depth of man's questionings is more important than his answers.

The terrible thing about death is that it transforms life into destiny.

If we cannot shape our destiny there is no such thing as witchcraft.

By Rice's own standards, the war was well underway by the time he took office. He was a war president the moment he took the oath. But did he act like one?

Under current law volunteers who are not working with an official nonprofit organization are not covered by the Volunteer Protection Act. Therefore, there are absolutely no legal protections for the average American who wishes to volunteer.

Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

I knew I wanted to act, and I was really driven, so I kept going for it. We moved to L.A. full-time when I was 8 or 9.

Maybe I can't act, but I know the gimmicks. I studied acting all my life and know what's good for me.

I've done a lot of acting. I'm not saying I'm the greatest, but I'd love to act, I'd love to sing.

P.C. is just too Big Brother - telling me how I should act and feel.

Act well your part, there all the honour lies.

I'm a 7 o'clock act. My people want to go to a show, a dinner and then go home and go to bed.

For me, romance isn't an over-the-top act. It's someone offering to help and to support me. Or if that person thinks I'm making the wrong decision, he'll tell me. I want him to be honest, because being that honest takes a lot of guts.

I want more children but for the next three years I want to act.

I have to say that it's very few countries that are willing to look back at its past and apologize for its act, or make amends for its act, as the United States had one.

I think unleashing 3,000 smart bombs against the city of Baghdad in the first several days of the war... to me, if those were unleashed against the San Francisco Bay Area, I would call that an act of extreme terrorism.

I cannot sing, dance or act; what else would I be but a talk show host.

My kids act all the time and it's exactly what I used to do.

After the magical act accomplished by Joyce with Ulysses, perhaps we are getting away from it.

Presidents quickly realize that while a single act might destroy the world they live in, no one single decision can make life suddenly better or can turn history around for the good.

A marriage is no amusement but a solemn act, and generally a sad one.

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.