After it is all over the religion of man is his most important possession.

Gentleness self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

This is the most intimate relationship between literature and its readers: they treat the text as a part of themselves as a possession.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing not in demanding or expecting not in hoping even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was nor forward to what it might be but living in the present and accepting it as it is now.

Once upon a time my political opponents honored me as possessing the fabulous intellectual and economic power by which I created a worldwide depression all by myself.

No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary whatever the punishment once a specific crime has appeared for the first time its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been.

A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light.

I think a responsibility comes with notoriety but I never think of it as power. It's more like something you hold like grains of sand. If you keep your hand closed you can have it and possess it but if you open your fingers in any way you can lose it just as quickly.

To get power over is to defile. To possess is to defile.

Conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long even if it is the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one and the great charm of all power is modesty.