“Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity.” 

I no longer wish to meet a good I do not earn, for example, to find a pot of buried gold, knowing that it brings with it new burdens.

And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.

We are always getting ready to live but never living.

Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their aint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus.

“Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to someone who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day.” 

“Every impulse we strangle will only poison us.” 

“Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?” 

“Everything in moderation, including moderation.” 

Life is a journey, not a destination

“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.” 

The best part of health is fine disposition. It is more essential than talent, even in the works of talent.

What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour?

We ask for long life, but ’tis deep life, or noble moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical

Men are better than their theology.

“Crying is for plain women. Pretty women go shopping.” 

“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.” 

I would say things like 'I am the greatest! I'm pretty! If you talk jive, you'll drop in five! I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee! I'm pretty!' When white people heard me talking like this, some said, 'That black man talks too much. He's bragging.'

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

Joe Frazier got hit more than me - and he doesn't have Parkinson's.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home.

If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.

For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something else.