To like and dislike the same things, this is what makes a solid friendship.

All who consult on doubtful matters, should be void of hatred, friendship, anger, and pity.

All those who offer an opinion on any doubtful point should first clear their minds of every sentiment of dislike, friendship, anger or pity.

In my opinion, he only may be truly said to live and enjoy his being who is engaged in some laudable pursuit, and acquires a name by some illustrious action, or useful art.

Harmony makes small things grow, lack of it makes great things decay.

As the blessings of health and fortune have a beginning, so they must also find an end. Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.

Neither soldiers nor money can defend a king but only friends won by good deeds, merit, and honesty.

He that will be angry for anything will be angry for nothing.

Happiness is actually found in simple things, such as taking my nephew around the island by bicycle or seeing the stars at night. We go to coffee shops or see airplanes land at the airport.

I think writers of memoirs need to be respected for the bold decision they take to bare their lives open. That alone should be enough. The things I write about, if you notice, are sensitive issues for a lot of people. If I told you my age, they would get ideas. The next thing you know they'll be filing lawsuits against me.

Business has only two functions - marketing and innovation.

How goodness heightens beauty!

Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress.

True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power.

The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness.

Happiness is the longing for repetition.

Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.

The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead.

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.

To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace.

He took over anger to intimidate subordinates, and in time anger took over him.

Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent.

There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos.

You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.

Friendship is something whose depth fits human aspirations and fulfills human possibilities. It has heft to it, as a gold-piece does and a gambling chip does not.

The real test of friendship is: can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?

9/11 revealed that those about to die do not seem afraid or plead for forgiveness for their sins, if they think about them at all. They all have one thing in mind - those they love - and they all do the same thing: They call them up - spouses, family or friends - to tell them they love them.

There would be no need for love if perfection were possible. Love arises from our imperfection, from our being different and always in need of the forgiveness, encouragement and that missing half of ourselves that we are searching for, as the Greek myth tells us, in order to complete ourselves.

Catholicism actually resembles a family that survives because even as it aspires to holiness, it understands and can live with sin and imperfection.

Hierarchical formulations died because their wedding cake levels posited a multiply fractured cosmos that does not match the Space Age revelation of a unified universe in which the earth is clearly in, rather than separated from, the heavens. Hierarchical representations do not reflect what either the world or we are like.

Human experience resembles the battered moon that tracks us in cycles of light and darkness, of life and death, now seeking out and now stealing away from the sun that gives it light and symbolizes eternity.

St. Pope John XXIII called for the Second Vatican Council because he understood, as no Holy Father had in a long time, religion spoke to and found its language and symbols - its entire sense of the sacramental nature of existence - in the imagination that reveals not just the penalties of living, but the wonder and awe of our existence.

The perception of the horizon is an earthbound event; all horizons disappear in space, and we are left shorn of the sweet roots that have held us to the earth, challenged to imagine what is truly present just before us, a unified and seemingly limitless universe.

The object of religion is the imagination, that deep and inexhaustible font of our understanding and symbolizing our deepest possibilities.

We all have special numbers in our lives, and 4 is that for me. It's the day I was born. My mother's birthday, and a lot of my friends' birthdays, are on the fourth; April 4 is my wedding date.

We all have our imperfections. But I'm human, and you know, it's important to concentrate on other qualities besides outer beauty.

If I weren't performing, I'd be a beauty editor or a therapist. I love creativity, but I also love to help others. My mother was a hairstylist, and they listen to everyone's problems - like a beauty therapist!

I wanted to be famous for my music and my talent, and I always wished I could cut it out when I left the stage.

For me, it's about the way I carry myself and the way I treat other people. My relationship and how I feel about God and what He does for me, is something deeply personal. It's where I came from, my family, I was brought up in a religious household and that's very important to me.

Power means happiness; power means hard work and sacrifice.

When you love and accept yourself, when you know who really cares about you, and when you learn from your mistakes, then you stop caring about what people who don't know you think.

When you really don't like a guy, they're all over you, and as soon as you act like you like them, they're no longer interested.

Whenever I'm confused about something, I ask God to reveal the answers to my questions, and he does.

I think it's healthy for a person to be nervous. It means you care - that you work hard and want to give a great performance. You just have to channel that nervous energy into the show.

Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy. Marilyn Monroe, because she was a curvy woman. I'm drawn to things that have the same kind of silhouettes as what she wore because our bodies are similar.

Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy.

To be able to travel the world, especially to places I never thought I'd be... it's really, you know, still fascinating for me.

I truly believe that women should be financially independent from their men. And let's face it, money gives men the power to run the show. It gives men the power to define value. They define what's sexy. And men define what's feminine. It's ridiculous.

I think music is something that can, and should, be used to get you into different things because eventually what goes up must come down - we're not going to be the number one group in the world forever - so you have to have something else to fall back on.

I am really proud that I am one of the artists that has the opportunity to be on magazine covers and to be in the movies.