“Just as a flower, which seems beautiful has color but no perfume, so are the fruitless words of a man who speaks them but does them not.”

Do not give your attention to what others do or fail to do; give it to what you do or fail to do.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes. Nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them. This is one of the best ways of self-education.

The more a man knows, the more he forgives.

I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want.

To see things in the seed, that is genius.

The pain passes, but the beauty remains.

I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.