I'm an old man, and all my life I've said that Notre Dame should remain independent because it's a national school.

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.

To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.

Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.

Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.

If some years were added to my life, I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults.

The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.