The average man’s life consists of: Twenty years of having his mother ask him where he is going, Forty years of having his wife ask the same question; and at the end, the mourners wondering too.

To exaggrerate is to weaken.

Always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits

Differentfields, different grasshoppers; different seas, different fish.

I know youbelieve you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realizethat what you heard isn't what I meant.

The exercise of power is determined by thousands ofinteractions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, allthe more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyonehas a small part of himself in both.

A manshould never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying,in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

A cup is useful only when it is empty; and a mind that is filled with beliefs, with dogmas, with assertions, with quotations, is really an uncreative mind.

Ideal society is a drama enacted exclusively in the imagination

It isthe acid test of nonviolence that in a nonviolent conflict there is no rancorleft behind, and in the end the enemies are converted into friends.

Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.

It is better to trust and sometimes be disappointed thanto be forever mistrusting and be right occasionally.