I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, 

but I have felt it.

Never give up, 

for that is just the place and time 

that the tide will turn.

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; 

but make it hot by striking.

He knows not his own strength 

that has not met adversity.

A man is only as good as what he loves.

There is no harm in being sometimes wrong 

— especially if one is promptly found out.

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, 

of which the far greater part of the members 

are poor and miserable.

When the poet makes his perfect selection of a word, 

he is endowing the word with life.

Poetry is a mixture of common sense, 

which not all have, 

with an uncommon sense, 

which very few have.

A man does not know what he is saying 

until he knows what he is not saying.

Fond memory brings the light of other days around me.

All life is an experiment. 

The more experiments you make 

the better.

Every failure is a step to success.

An unfulfilled vocation drains the colour from a man's entire existence.

Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.

To love it too much 

is to obscure 

and not see 

what is there.

The information is in the people, 

not in your head.

Once an object has been incorporated in a picture 

it accepts a new destiny.

Truth cannot be brought down; 

rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. 

You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. 

If you would attain to the mountaintop, 

you must pass through the valley, 

climb the steeps, 

unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

We do not know enough about 

how the present will lead into the future.

It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for

 — the whole thing — 

rather than just one or two stars.

The only freedom I care about

 is the freedom to do right; 

the freedom to do wrong 

I am ready to part with 

on the cheapest terms 

to anyone who will take it of me.

One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.

The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, 

no matter which side he's on.

The more nobly a man wills and acts, 

the more avid he becomes 

for great and sublime aims to pursue. 

He will no longer be content with family, country, 

and the remunerative aspect of his work. 

He will want wider organisations to create, 

new paths to blaze, 

causes to uphold, 

truths to discover, 

an ideal to cherish and defend.

Language is a part of our organism 

and no less complicated than it.

A lost but happy dream 

may shed its light 

upon our waking hours, 

and the whole day 

may be infected 

with the gloom 

of a dreary or sorrowful one; 

yet of neither may we be able to recover a trace.

Fashion is the science of appearance, 

and it inspires one with the desire to seem 

rather than to be.

I am no bird; 

and no net ensnares me; 

I am a free human being 

with an independent will.

A high heart ought to bear calamities 

and not flee them, 

since in bearing them 

appears the grandeur of the mind 

and in fleeing them 

the cowardice of the heart.

All good Literature rests primarily on insight.

To find a form that accommodates the mess, 

that is the task of the artist now.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... 

They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Nature is a temple 

in which living columns sometimes emit confused words. 

Man approaches it through forests of symbols, 

which observe him with familiar glances.

In all the areas within which the spiritual life of humanity is at work, 

the historical epoch wherein fate has placed us 

is an epoch of stupendous happenings.

A multitude of causes 

unknown to former times 

are now acting with a combined force 

to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, 

and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion 

to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor.

The hallway of every man's life 

is paced with pictures; 

pictures gay and pictures gloomy, 

all useful, 

for if we be wise, 

we can learn from them 

a richer and braver way to live.

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility 

cannot keep me from making mistakes. 

Only when I fall 

do I get up again.

The poet is a madman lost in adventure.

I am never afraid of what I know.

Painting (like poetry) chooses 

from universals 

what is most apposite. 

It brings together, 

in a single imaginary being, 

circumstances and characteristics 

which occur in nature

 in many different persons.

The big question is 

whether you are going to be able to say 

a hearty yes 

to your adventure.

What happens when good people 

are put into an evil place? 

Do they triumph 

or does the situation dominate 

their past history and morality?

Who are you going to believe, 

me or your own eyes?

I determined never to stop 

until I had come to the end 

and achieved my purpose.

The enslaving of the other is also the enslaving of the self.

The basic fault lines today are 

not between people with different beliefs 

but between people who hold these beliefs 

with an element of uncertainty 

and people who hold these beliefs 

with a pretence of certitude.

Every man, 

when he comes to be sensible of his natural rights, 

and to feel his own importance, 

will consider himself as fully equal 

to any other person whatever.

The eye by long use comes to see 

even in the darkest cavern: 

and there is no subject so obscure 

but we may discern some glimpse of truth 

by long poring on it.

It seems to me that 

at this time 

we need education in the obvious