It is sometimes easier to head an institute for the study of child guidance than it is to turn one brat into a decent human being.

There is no such thing as a dangerous woman; there are only susceptible men.

Only those within whose own consciousness the sun rise and set, the leaves burgeon and wither, can be said to be aware of what living is.

Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.

Though many have tried, no one has ever yet explained away the decisive fact that science, which can do so much, cannot decide what it ought to do.

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.

It is sometimes easier to head an institute for the study of child guidance than it is to turn one brat into a decent human being.

When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man we call him a vandal. When he destroys one of the works of god we call him a sportsman.

The snow itself is lonely or, if you prefer, self-sufficient. There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of one thing and one thing only.

Few people have ever seriously wished to be exclusively rational. The good life which most desire is a life warmed by passions and touched with that ceremonial grace which is impossible without some affectionate loyalty to traditional form and ceremonies.

Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many different ailments, but I have never heard of one who suffered from insomnia.

What a man knows is everywhere at war with what he wants.

It is not ignorance but knowledge which is the mother of wonder.

Both the cockroach and the bird would get along very well without us, although the cockroach would miss us most.

The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February.

Security depends not so much upon how much you have, as upon how much you can do without.

If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food, either.

If people destroy something replaceable made by mankind, they are called vandals; if they destroy something irreplaceable made by God, they are called developers.

Any euphemism ceases to be euphemistic after a time and the true meaning begins to show through. It's a losing game, but we keep on trying.

August creates as she slumbers, replete and satisfied.

Civilizations die from philosophical calm irony and a sense of fair play quite as surely as they die of debauchery.

If people destroy something replaceable made by mankind they are called vandals if they destroy something irreplaceable made by God they are called developers.

If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy it will in the end not produce food either.

Every time a value is born existence takes on a new meaning every time one dies some part of that meaning passes away.

A humanist is anyone who rejects the attempt to describe or account for man wholly on the basis of physics chemistry or animal behaviour.

In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats.

As machines get to be more and more like men, men will come to be more like machines.

Metaphysics may be, after all, only the art of being sure of something that is not so and logic only the art of going wrong with confidence.

Technology made large populations possible; large populations now make technology indispensable.

To be individually righteous is the first of all duties, come what may to ones self, to one's country, to society, and to civilization itself.

The rare moment is not the moment when there is something worth looking at, but the moment when we are capable of seeing.

The wilderness and the idea of wilderness is one of the permanent homes of the human spirit.

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Being a publicist is like management in a lot of ways - you're their friend, you're their mother, you're their confidante.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

We've had it very clear to the Bosnians that our obligation to equip and train their forces is completely conditional on the foreign forces being gone.

My parents were amazing people who had no business being together - and they knew it.

Teachers started recognizing me and praising me for being smart in science and that made me want to be even smarter in science!

Sure, I get the blues. But what I try to do, is apply joy to the blues, you know? I don't know if it's a technique, or just being bent that way, being raised by the folks I was raised by.