The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, noris it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.
I can imagine in years to come that my papers and memorabilia, my journals and letters, will find themselves always in the company of people who care about many of the things I do.
When I look out on such a night as this, I feel as if there could be neither wickedness nor sorrow in the world; and there certainly would be less of both if the sublimity of Nature were more attended to, and people were carried more out of themselves by contemplating such a scene.
I always try to give my own albums space in between so I have time to create a new sound and give time for people to miss me. You have to come out fresh and reinvent yourself.
I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.
You can easily find people who are ten times as rich at sixty as they were at twenty but not one of them will tell you that they are ten times as happy
Legislatively, the thing I'm most proud of is healthcare, and I will continue to be most proud of it because not only do we have 30 million people who are going to get healthcare, we've got six million young people who are able to stay on their parents' plan until they're 26.
But whenever one meets modern thinkers (as one often does) progressing toward a madhouse, one always finds, on inquiry, that they have just had a splendid escape from another madhouse. Thus, hundreds of people become Socialists, not because they have tried Socialism and found it nice, but because they have tried Individualism and found it particularly nasty.
The subject of history is the life of peoples and of humanity. To catch and pin down in words--that is, to describe directly the life, not only of humanity, but even of a single people, appears to be impossible.