In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance.Collection: Knowledge
I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen.Collection: Chance
Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him.Collection: Future
All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.Collection: Experience
We should read to give our souls a chance to luxuriate.Collection: Chance
An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.Collection: Alone
The waking mind is the least serviceable in the arts.Collection: Art
If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.Collection: Peace
Back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: it comes and goes. But if one believes, then miracles occur.Collection: Faith
Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense.Collection: Wisdom
The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love.Collection: Love
Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.Collection: Brainy
True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself.Collection: Strength
Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.Collection: Fear
The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love.Collection: Love
The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.Collection: Communication
Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.Collection: Music
I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.Collection: Money
Los Angeles gives one the feeling of the future more strongly than any city I know of. A bad future, too, like something out of Fritz Lang's feeble imagination.Collection: Imagination
The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.Collection: Life
No matter how vast, how total, the failure of man here on earth, the work of man will be resumed elsewhere. War leaders talk of resuming operations on this front and that, but man's front embraces the whole universe.Collection: Failure
Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.Collection: Imagination
The legal system is often a mystery, and we, its priests, preside over rituals baffling to everyday citizens.Collection: Legal
The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way.Collection: Leadership
The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.
I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth.
The Teutons have been singing the swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always confounded truth with death.
If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.
Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.
Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.
If I am against the condition of the world, it is not because I am a moralist - it is because I want to laugh more.
The worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word, to see in his work a fulfillment instead of an horizon.
One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life.
One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.
We do not talk - we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.
Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane.