It is by a wise economy of nature that those who suffer without change, and whom no one can help, become uninteresting. Yet so it may happen that those who need sympathy the most often attract it the least.

Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived. It is a pity that this is still the only knowledge of their wives at which some men seem to arrive.

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.

It is good to know what a man is, and also what the world takes him for. But you do not understand him until you have learnt how he understands himself.

The one self-knowledge worth having is to know one's own mind.

The force of the blow depends on the resistance. It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation. Either fly or yield at once.

There are persons who, when they cease to shock us, cease to interest us.

Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.

One said of suicide, As long as one has brains one should not blow them out. And another answered, But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot.

Eclecticism - every truth is so true that any truth must be false.

The world is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary evil.

It is by a wise economy of nature that those who suffer without change, and whom no one can help, become uninteresting. Yet so it may happen that those who need sympathy the most often attract it the least.

Another occupation might have been better.

There are those who so dislike the nude that they find something indecent in the naked truth.

The mood in which my book was conceived and executed, was in fact to some extent a passing one.

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness.

The deadliest foe to virtue would be complete self-knowledge.

The man who has ceased to fear has ceased to care.

True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.

We say that a girl with her doll anticipates the mother. It is more true, perhaps, that most mothers are still but children with playthings.

The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is even condemned to find much of his own mind.

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.

I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change.

Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.

So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.

I wouldn't change Buffy for anything and I wouldn't change the course in which she has evolved but it is nice to be able to do something that is a little different.

For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer.

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.

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.

Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while.

You don't have to be the Dalai Lama to tell people that life's about change.

I knew that my staying up would not change the election result if I were defeated, while if elected I had a hard day ahead of me. So I thought a night's rest was best in any event.

It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo.

Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work.

A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end.

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.

In their search for quality, people seem to be looking for permanency in a time of change.

The game has kept faith with the public, maintaining its old admission price for nearly thirty years while other forms of entertainment have doubled and tripled in price. And it will probably never change.

One day I actually took the list into the bathroom and I put it up against my face and looked in the mirror and I realized I had one of two choices, change the list or change myself.

But the real focus should be on people who are buying today because the base is so big it will take a long time for any change materialize on an overall basis.

Markets change, tastes change, so the companies and the individuals who choose to compete in those markets must change.

The psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli.

Headteachers and governing bodies run schools and that won't change.

Using the power of decision gives you the capacity to get past any excuse to change any and every part of your life in an instant.

They said just keep doing my thing, don't try to change anything, which I won't.

Change can either challenge or threaten us. Your beliefs pave your way to success or block you.

My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see.

Perhaps it's the people whose lives have taken sudden new twists - people who have learned to embrace the creative possibilities of change - who stand the best chance of penetrating life's mysteries.

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.