A book which, above all others in the world, should be forbidden, is a catalogue of forbidden books.

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

To read means to borrow; to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.

Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.

He who understands the wise is wise already.

People sccumb to injuries and i sccumbed to my thoughts

One-time rival and subsequent usurper Secretary of State Seward finally settled into an assessment of Lincoln that, "His confidence and compassion increase every day.

The American president has a peculiar leadership responsibility to speak out for freedom.

It's almost impossible to be funnier than the people in Washington.

I have this dream life where I get to be a celebrity but I get to kind of navigate the world fairly easily because I'm always in character.

You don't need to be recluse and stay away from people. But you have to set aside a lot of time for stillness. That is the only place there is real fulfillment. You need to slow it down.

John Goodman is more that just a big guy, he's a wonderful actor.

Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects that must be saved from a burning building.

Hulkamania is like a single grain of sand in the Sahara desert that is Macho Madness.

I like the night, I have clearer ideas in the dark.