Ambition is not a weakness unless it be disproportioned to the capacity. To have more ambition than ability is to be at once weak and unhappy.

Sunsets in themselves are generally superior to sunrises; but with the sunset we appreciate images drawn from departed peace and faded glory.

Artists will sometimes speak of Rome with disparagement or indifference while it is before them; but no artist ewer lived in Rome and then left it, without sighing to return.

There are no eyes so sharp as the eyes of hatred.

Strategy is the most important department of the art of war, and strategical skill is the highest and rarest function of military genius.

A sluggish, dawdling, and dilatory man may have spasms of activity, but he never acts continuously and consecutively with energetic quickness.

Great men are among the best gifts which God bestows upon a people.

Man is an animal that cannot long be left in safety without occupation; the growth of his fallow nature is apt to run into weeds.

Many persons feel art, some understand it; but few both feel and understand it.

The malignity that never forgets or forgives is found only in base and ignoble natures, whose aims are selfish, and whose means are indirect, cowardly, and treacherous.

Misfortunes have their dignity and their redeeming power.

When people use you, it does not feel very good. But when God uses you for His purpose, it's the gretest feeling in the world!

Take it for words. O woman’s poor revenge, Which dwells but in the tongue!

Writing to please all readers is like cooking without seasoning …

There are glimpses of heaven to us in every act, or thought, or word, that raises us above ourselves.

Pennsylvania is a very tough state; people don't last long in Pennsylvania politics.

I'm just taking one step at a time. I could zigzag one way, but it's not usually on purpose.

Do not answer the person whose questions are vile. Do not question a person whose answers are vile.

Make thy recreation servant to thy business, lest thou become a slave to thy recreation.

We came back right over the World Trade Center, and could see, even from that altitude the devastation, the smoke that was coming up. It was obvious it was going to be horrible.

Dancing and running shake up the chemistry of happiness.