The further and further we look out with our telescopes and the further and further we look in with our microscopes, the larger and larger and smaller and smaller the universe becomes in order to escape the investigation because we are the universe looking at itself.
If someone came to me and said, "Your strategy in your post-presidency is brilliant," as if I had figured out a way to make me look better, to me, that analysis is amusing.
To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face, and to know it for what it is...at last, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away.
Let a man learn to look for the permanent in the mutable and fleeting; let him learn to bear the disappearance of things he was wont to reverence; without losing his reverence; let him learn that he is here, not to work, but to be worked upon; and that, though abyss open under abyss, and opinion displace opinion, all are at last contained in the Eternal Cause.
It often happens that we blurt out things that may in some kind of way be harmful to us, but we are silent about things that may make us look ridiculous; because in this case effect follows very quickly on cause.
Do not look only at yourself, and you will see much. Do not justify yourself, and you will be distinguished. Do not brag, and you will have merit. Do not be prideful, and your work will endure.
If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you will look forward, do so prayerfully. But the wisest course would be to be present in the present gratefully.
Life, too, is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward. It is only when you stop and look to the rear that you see the corpse caught under your wheel.