Abba Eban

I love life, but not everything in it. I love people, but not all of them. I love myself, but not everything about me.

As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.

All I can do is be me, whoever that is.

How beautiful the world was when one looked at it without searching, just looked, simply and innocently.

The person who reads too much and uses his brain too little will fall into lazy habits of thinking.

All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.

If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect.

Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.

I’ve always thought that each person invented himself… for whatever reason, through whatever circumstance, through whatever he is gone through… that we are each a figment of our own imagination… And some people have a greater ability to imagine than others.

If you really understand Zen, you can use any book, even the dictionary, because the sound of the rain needs no translation.

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses.

I know the sun rises in the eat and sets in the west, that I am ten fingers and ten toes and ten thousand reasons short of explaining what it is I can’t explain to you. And I know that I will always love you in certainties.

You gotta do what you love and really believe in it because that is your truth.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.