A philosopher once noted that something is odd if a person is not liberal when he is young and conservative when he is old.

I wasn't in a hurry. I never have to be in any particular place at any particular time. Let time watch me, not me it.

But it also crossed my mind that in spite of all, in spite of our fragility and ignorance, we have an incredible advantage over the stars — it is for us that time works, giving us a major opportunity to transform the suffering, aching world into a happy and peaceful one.

It is widely known, after all, that real life takes place in movement.

They weren't real travelers: they left in order to return.

Standing there on the embankment, staring into the current, I realized that — in spite of all the risks involved — a thing in motion will always be better than a thing at rest; that change will always be a nobler thing than permanence; that that which is static will degenerate and decay, turn to ash, while that which is in motion is able to last for all eternity.

God, God . . . He's just a good accountant with an eye on the debit as well as the credit column. There has to be a balance. One life is wasted, another is born . . .

That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment.

A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.

And if I should live to beThe last leaf upon the treeIn the spring,Let them smile, as I do now,At the old forsaken boughWhere I cling.

You can have it all. You just can't have it all at once.

I trust that everything happens for a reason, even if we are not wise enough to see it.