A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue but the parent of all other virtues.

Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.

We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.

It is not enough to acquire wisdom, it is necessary to employ it.

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Once the demands of necessity and propriety have been met, the rest that one owns belongs to the poor.

Come with me to howling tree?""What?""Howling tree. It's a place a found. Come on

An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds for love is measured by fullness not by reception.

When you hear hoofbeats think of horses before zebras.

I still find it quite easy to find my way into a child's imagination. We're all Peter Pan ourselves in some respects. Everybody should keep some grip on childhood, even as a grownup.

The Renaissance is studded by the names of the artists and architects, with their creations recorded as great historical events.

In fact, people think you have to be stressed to be successful. They think if you are not stressed, something is wrong with you.

You should celebrate the end of a love affair as they celebrate death in New Orleans, with songs, laughter, dancing and a lot of wine.

For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and the grave; in bed, beauty before goodness.