An Irish man fights before he reasons, a Scotchman reasons before he fights, an Englishman is not particular as to the order of precedence, but will do either to accommodate his customers.

True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straight forward and simple integrity in another.

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.

The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.

Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.

Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.

Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.

The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.

Love is what we were borne with. Fear is what we learned here.

I walked a mile with Sorrow And ne'er a word said she But oh the things I learned from her When Sorrow walked with me.

There is no shame in preferring happiness.

Is not short paine well borne, that brings long ease,And layes the soul to sleepe in quiet grave?Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas,Ease after warre, death after life does greatly please.

I'm still compulsively interested in women. It's funny, I've always compulsively photographed women. I still do.

People get so in the habit of worry that if you save them from drowning and put them on a bank to dry in the sun with hot chocolate and muffins they wonder whether they are catching cold.

Libertarianism is a theory of politics that is so compelling that once you have absorbed it, it becomes the lens through which you end up understanding all economic and political events.

I didn't get the Russian Jew part because they didn't think I looked Russian or Jewish enough - and, mind you, I am both Russian and Jewish - so I was cast as the racist Mexican.

We believe that poverty does not belong in a civilized human society. It belongs in museums [...] A poverty-free world might not be perfect, but it would be the best approximation of the ideal.

Matt Damon is a great actor, and he's from Boston, so we've got a few things in common. I've seen him throw a football, though. He definitely needs to work on that.