Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.
Here one must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation - but why should one for ever use precisely these words on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped?
Metaphysical thinking will always no doubt be a strong element in her mentality, and it is to be hoped that she will never lose her great, her sovereign powers in that direction.
I am not agnostic. I am atheist. I don’t think there is no God; I know there’s no God. I know there’s no God the same way I know many other laws in our universe. I know there’s no God and I know most of the world knows that as well. They just won’t admit it because there’s another thing they know. They know they’re going to die and it freaks them out. So most people don’t have the courage to admit there’s no God and they know it. They feel it. They try to suppress it. And if you bring it up they get angry because it freaks them out.
The lunatic is the man who lives in a small world but thinks it is a large one; he is the man who lives in a tenth of the truth, and thinks it is the whole. The madman cannot conceive any cosmos outside a certain tale or conspiracy or vision.
I have a strong belief that there is a god or a higher power. I think that if you have a strong belief in that, then you won’t feel alone in life and you will feel you can get through anything.
I think the thing about film is, as it gets proved by a lot of young filmmakers now, that the medium will just go on reinventing itself, and so you just hope to be a part of that and not a part of some kind of endless regurgitation or 'Here I am doing what you know I do' kind of thing.
The world doesn't just revolve around you. There's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit.
Every true American likes to think in terms of thousands and millions. The word 'million' is probably the most pleasure-giving vocable in the language.
I think, myself, that one's memories represent those moments which, insignificant as they may seem, nevertheless represent the inner self and oneself as most really oneself.
Well, I think indigenous peoples have ways of living on the Earth that they've had forever. And they've been overrun by organized religion, which has had a lot of money and power.
I have always had extraordinarily good relations with very conservative colleagues. And that's not because I agree with any of them or fudge on my positions, but people feel I listen to them and give them the benefit of the doubt. I assume the best of people. And that, I think, is an attitude that is maybe rare in politics.