Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same - hardihood. Give them raw truth.

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.

All progress is experimental.

The reason for the slow progress of the world seems to lie in a single fact. Every man is born under the yoke, and grows up beneath the oppressions of his age.

Learning is not easy, but hard; culture is severe. The steps to Parnassus are steep and terribly arduous.

Attack another's rights and you destroy your own.

Nothing is more injurious to the character and to the intellect than the suppression of a generous emotion.

Politics is organized hatred, that is unity.

Too much agreement kills the chat.

Our goodness comes solely from thinking on goodness; our wickedness from thinking on wickedness. We too are the victims of our own contemplation.

Benevolence alone will not make a teacher, nor will learning alone do it. The gift of teaching is a peculiar talent, and implies a need and a craving in the teacher himself.

He'd turned away from a life on basic to live in the stars, or if not the stars, at least the rocks that floated free in the night sky.

When you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done.

Deep down, she's a good person, Diana is, " Caine said, and sighed. "Deep down, I'm not. But she is.

It's through discipline and tremendous disappointment and failure that you arrive at what it is you must paint.

We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all.

My audience is much more center right, or centrist.

He who stands like a pilar dies in battle. He who bends like a reed is triumphant!

I can wade Grief -- Whole Pools of it -- I'm used to that -- But the least push of Joy Breaks up my feet -- And I tip -- drunken -- Let no Pebble -- smile -- 'Twas the New Liquor -- That was all!

To be understood a writer has to explain almost everything.

It's kind of weird to meet people that grew up in films who are still in touch with reality.