Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error.

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.

What you need is more important than what you want.

Prosperity is a great teacher adversity a greater.

We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.

Love: It is like a cigar. If it goes out, you can light it again but it never tastes quite the same.

And I tend to listen to NPR when I'm not writing.

Our nation's security, economy, and place on the world stage depends on the success our educational system.

Venice is beautiful, but like a Bergman movie is beautiful; you can admire it, but you don't really want to live in it.

Try not to turn your life into a race, least of all an obstacle race.

Irony differentiates. Cynicism never does.

I'm not a man who constantly thinks up jokes.