As far as I’m concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.

Never memorize something that you can look up.

When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. When life is bitter, say thank you and grow.

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it.

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

To see with one’s own eyes, to feel and judge without succumbing to the suggestive power of the fashion of the day, to be able to express what one has seen and felt in a trim sentence or even in a cunningly wrought word – is that not glorious? Is it not a proper subject for congratulation?

On the mysterious: It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

I always get by best with my naivety, which is 20 percent deliberate.

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. 

Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.

Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

It is better to be beautiful than good, but it is better to be good than ugly.

Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

Beauty always promises, but never gives anything.

Beauty is a delightful prejudice.

A flower blossoms for its own joy.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.

Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it’s beauty.