Faith and works are necessary to our spiritual life as Christians, as soul and body are to our natural life as men; for faith is the soul of religion, and works the body.

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.

As Blake wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: “You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

The only time it's hopeless is when you're dead! Long as you're alive, you can get better - you can make it better.

The biggest and most deadly 'tax' rate on the poor comes from a loss of various welfare state benefits - food stamps, housing subsidies and the like - if their income goes up.

What a man is lies as certainly upon his countenance as in his heart, though none of his acquaintances may be able to read it. The very intercourse with him may have rendered it more difficult.

Few fears are rational.

I won't patronize you by saying I know how you feel-every tragedy is different, and personal.

When I think of competition it's like I try to create against the past. I think about Michelangelo and Picasso, you know, the pyramids.

I think all women should learn how to strip. It's a really healthy, extremely challenging thing to do.

Sometimes you just wish you could make a film and then have it on DVD so you can see your mom. But, no, I've never really had that moment. Not really. Not seriously.

Over 1,057,000 people have been killed by guns in the USA since John Lennon was shot and killed on 8 Dec 1980.