A good cook is the peculiar gift of the gods. He must be a perfect creature from the brain to the palate, from the palate to the finger's end.

The spirit of Greece, passing through and ascending above the world, hath so animated universal nature, that the very rocks and woods, the very torrents and wilds burst forth with it.

No ashes are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in excess.

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.

A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice.

My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them.

Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat, or violence, or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after.

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love.

Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it.

I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held.

Once politics become a tug-of-war for shares in the income pie, decent government is impossible.

Prayer is the very way God Himself has chosen for us to express our conscious need of Him and our humble dependence on Him.

Barack Obama knows a lot about a lot of things.

I took the life of the woman I was supposed to call mother in the process of being born... in order to become the world's strongest shinobi... an incarnation of sand was implanted inside of me.

I hate vacations. If you can build buildings, why sit on the beach?

Sometimes the riskiest decision you can make is to do nothing.

Even though you're reading something, it's as though that person who wrote it is speaking to you. It's a form of conversation, really.