I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

One cannot violate the promptings of one's nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.

Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

The scab is a traitor to his God, his mother, and his class.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.

San Francisco is gone. Nothing remains of it but memories.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

Affluence means influence.

If cash comes with fame, come fame; if cash comes without fame, come cash.

A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

Do you know the only value life has is what life puts on itself?

Life is so short. I would rather sing one song than interpret the thousand.

Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

As one grows weaker one is less susceptible to suffering. There is less hurt because there is less to hurt.

The proper function of man is to live not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.

If cash comes with fame come fame if cash comes without fame come cash.

A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog when you are just as hungry as the dog.

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living this ecstasy comes when one is most alive and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.

You cant wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

He was a silent fury who no torment could tame.

Limited minds can recognize limitations only in others.

Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death.

Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time.

In a saturated population life is always cheap.

Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.

Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it. The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.

Because beauty isn't enough, there must be something more.

Oh! this opponent, this collaborator against your will, whose notion of beauty always differs from yours and whose means are often too limited for active assistance to your intentions!

The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within - strength, courage, dignity.

Beauty set up distance between other people and me. It warped their behavior.

Do not confuse beauty with beautiful. Beautiful is a human judgment. Beauty is All. The difference is everything.

The double hundred Fowler hit in the Madras Test was an absolute beauty.

Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.

I had a lot of resentment for a while toward Kim Novak. But I don't mind her anymore. She's okay. We've become friends. I even asked her before this trip for some beauty tips.

You don't know what the Chinese expect in the way of beauty. The presentation is just a farce. You come into a room filled with 50 people and they don't talk to you. There's very little interaction.

Then Christ shall be clothed with all the beauty of the elect as if with a long tunic variously adorned, in which He shall shine as if covered with all manner of precious stones.

There is no spot of ground, however arid, bare or ugly, that cannot be tamed into such a state as may give an impression of beauty and delight.

Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.

To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.

There's one more thing I want to say. It's a touchy subject. Black beauty. Black sensuality. We live in a culture where the beauty of black people isn't always as celebrated as other types. I'd like to help change that if I can!

In things to be seen at once, much variety makes confusion, another vice of beauty. In things that are not seen at once, and have no respect one to another, great variety is commendable, provided this variety transgress not the rules of optics and geometry.

The idea that happiness could have a share in beauty would be too much of a good thing.

The real message of the Dance opens up the vistas of life to all who have the urge to express beauty with no other instrument than their own bodies, with no apparatus and no dependence on anything other than space.