Let me warn you, if you start chasing after views, you'll be left without bread and without views.

It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry.

Whatever you may say, the body depends on the soul.

Everywhere across whatever sorrows of which our life is woven, some radiant joy will gaily flash past.

There are certain words which are nearer and dearer to a man than any others.

The Lord grant we may all be tillers of the soil.

You can't imagine how stupid the whole world has grown nowadays.

The experience of ages has shown that a man who works on the land is purer, nobler, higher, and more moral... Agriculture should be at the basis of everything. That's my idea.

They're thinking of turning the peasant into an educated man. Why, first of all they should make him a good and prosperous farmer and then he'll learn all that is necessary for him to know.

Always think of what is useful and not what is beautiful. Beauty will come of its own accord.

Let me warn you, if you start chasing after views, you'll be left without bread and without views.

Countless as the sands of the sea are human passions.

It's the most righteous, which of course is not the same thing as the most profitable.

We ought to thank God for that. Yes, the man who tills the land is more worthy of respect than any.

Atheists have not produced so much evil as hypocrites have produced, or even simply those who preached God without being prepared for Him, daring to pronounce His name with unsanctified lips.

For a man, the soul of a woman is a preserving talisman, guarding him from moral infections; it is a power holding him to the straight path, a guide leading him back from the crooked to the straight. On the other hand, the soul of a woman can be his evil and ruin him forever.

I am a writer, and the duty of a writer is not only to furnish pleasant pursuits for the mind and taste: he will be held accountable if things useful to the soul are not disseminated by his works and if nothing remains after him as a precept for mankind.

I ask everyone in Russia to pray for me, beginning with the bishops, whose whole life is a single prayer. I ask prayers also of those who humbly do not believe in the efficacy of their prayers, as well as of those who do not believe in prayer at all and even consider it useless.

I here ask pardon of all my compatriots for everything of which I have been guilty towards them. I know that, by my ill-considered and immature works, I have brought distress to many and that I have even provoked others to attack me openly and, in general, have produced displeasure in many.

If you have not first pondered the entire situation of the man whom you wish to help, and if you have not brought with you instructions for him to follow henceforth in leading his life, he will not receive great good from your help.

Let my body be delivered to the earth without attention to the place where it lies; nothing should be associated with my dusty remains. Shame on him who draws any attention to a rotted flesh that is already no longer mine: he is worshipping the worms nibbling it.

Russia! Russia... Everything in you is open, desolate and level; your squat towns barely protrude in the midst of the plains like dots, like counters; there is nothing to tempt or enchant the onlooker's gaze. But what is this inscrutable, mysterious force that draws me to you?

Sometimes, it is enough for us to hold out a hand to receive help. It is not we who help; God helps, granting His power to the powerless word.

The higher truths are, the more cautious one must be with them; otherwise, they are converted into common things, and common things are not believed.

The influence of a woman can be very great, especially now, in the present order or disorder of society, in which there is a kind of spiritual chill, a kind of moral fatigue, demanding reanimation. In order to produce this reanimation, the cooperation of woman is indispensable.

Wise is the man who does not disdain any character and instead, examining him with a searching look, plumbs him to the very main-springs of his being.

Gambling is the great leveller. All men are equal at cards.

Perfect nonsense goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all.

When you're working on a project that's going to take six years, you're weird from the jump.

I go for a couple of parties; you won't find me at every film party and never at award ceremonies. I tried attending for the first three to four years, and I've performed at award shows. I sat in them, and I've also exited pretty fast from them. It's just not my place. I'd rather get their adulation in a cinema hall.

I have a very deep and wide relationship with my fans.

I spoke to my agent and learned that a Hollywood scout had seen my proposal in one of the publishing houses, and had faxed it to Hollywood, where it was generating a lot of interest.

Even when Im dead Ill swim through the Earth like a mermaid of the soil just to be next to your bones.

I would definitely go back and do theater; I talk about theater all the time.

I had a small investment in Twofold, following guidance from my professional advisers. I had, however, claimed no tax relief of any amount in regard to this investment. Given the concerns raised about it, I have now instructed my advisors to withdraw me from the scheme with immediate effect.

'Government gets things right' does not encourage sales. 'Government makes another blunder' does encourage sales, so there's a commercial imperative that pushes sensationalism.

There's a reason screens are only this thick.

Never make eye contact with anyone while eating a banana.

At night I can write for hours.

A mind unruffled by the vagaries of fortune, from sorrow freed, from defilements cleansed, from fear liberated - this is the greatest blessing.

I became the kind of parent my mother was to me.

For conclusion, I say the philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth obscurely, so as the learned only can understand him; that is to say, he teacheth them that are already taught.

We have more patents on pigmented inks than anybody else.

I'm a hopeless 19th-century romantic.

People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing - continue to rock it - because obviously, God wants you here.

The glamour of being forbidden must not be underestimated.

Well, the bottom line is that I'm extremely pleased with 'The Stupids.' I'm pleased that it's coming out, and it should look good. It's nice looking, with the colors and stuff. I made it for kids, and I really would like them to see it.

We all go back to our roots. My father went to the central west, went to Ilfracombe in 1919. He was the manager of the wool scour there. And, Ilfracombe was right at the heart of Australia's great wool industry, and my mother was a teacher at Winton.

Leadership appears to be the art of getting others to want to do something you are convinced should be done.