Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's.

Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.

So far as I can remember there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.

[T]he infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.

I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.

It's easy to fall in love. The hard part is finding someone to catch you.

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.

To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.

Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.

It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

People don't always tell you what they are thinking. They just see to it that you don't advance in life.

I tend to get bored quickly, which means I must be boring.

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I'm blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

We have a Boesendorfer piano that I play every day. It keeps my brain and my fingers active.

Life's too short to deal with other people's insecurities.

My philosophy is it's none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.

I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one's nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves.

I'm a pretty tough guy, you know. I'm a pretty hard man. I've got a lot of compassion, but I don't waste time with people.

We're all caught up in circumstances, and we're all good and evil. When you're really hungry, for instance, you'll do anything to survive. I think the most evil thing - well, maybe that's too strong - but certainly a very evil thing is judgment, the sin of ignorance.

I don't have many friends; I'm very much a loner. As a child I was very isolated, and I've never been really close to anyone.

It's such a pleasant surprise when you come on set and you find someone in charge like Ken Branagh or James Ivory. You know that you're going to do a day's work and at the end of it, it's going to be good.

I've got a great sense of humor.

If you do things, whether it's acting or music or painting, do it without fear - that's my philosophy. Because nobody can arrest you and put you in jail if you paint badly, so there's nothing to lose.

I don't like freeloaders; I don't like people who are negative.

I'm most suspicious of scripts that have a lot of stage direction at the top of the page... sunrise over the desert and masses of... a whole essay before you get to the dialogue.

My weak spot is laziness. Oh, I have a lot of weak spots: cookies, croissants.

For me, time is the greatest mystery of all. The fact is that we're dreaming all the time. That's what really gets me. We have a fathomless lake of unconsciousness just beneath our skulls.

I would like to go back to Wales. I'm obsessed with my childhood and at least three times a week dream I am back there.

Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived. The pain now is part of the happiness then.

You look closely enough, you'll find that everything has a weak spot where it can break, sooner or later.

I think a certain amount of stress in life is good. The stress of just working, which takes effort - I think it keeps you going.

I never make conscious decisions.

I come from - I came from Wales, and it's a strong, butch society. We were in the war and all that. People didn't waste time feeling sorry for themselves. You had to get on with it. So my credo is get on with it. I don't waste time being soft. I'm not cold, but I don't like being, wasting my time with - life's too short.