Fanaticism is a fire, which heats the mind indeed, but heats without purifying. It stimulates and ferments all the passions; but it rectifies none of them.

Orthodoxy is my doxy - heterodoxy is another man's doxy.

Enthusiasm is that temper of the mind in which the imagination has got the better of the judgment.

Reason is the test of ridicule, not ridicule the test of truth.

High birth is a thing which I never knew any one to disparage except those who had it not; and I never knew any one to make a boast of it who had anything else to be proud of.

A lie has no legs, and cannot stand; but it has wings, and can fly far and wide.

The skilful disputant well knows that he never has his enemy at more advantage than when, by allowing the premises, he shows him arguing wrong from his own principles.

The Egyptians, by the concurrent testimony of antiquity, were among the first who taught that the soul was immortal.

Short isolated sentences were the mode in which ancient Wisdom delighted to convey its precepts, for the regulation of life and manners.

Admiration is one of the most bewitching, enthusiastic passions of the mind; and every common moralist knows that it arises from novelty and surprise, the inseparable attendants of imposture.

Hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.

No one is more profoundly sad than he who laughs too much.

You better have great practices.

I was always kind of florid. And full of rhetoric. That was my flaw. My whole time writing, I've had to work against that because it can be a wrecking posture.

I've had people turn me down. Not all that many, but certainly it happens.

I've probably gone a month or two without playing guitar, just because I've gotten so burnt on it touring all year or whatever.

I almost feel like I'm unoffendable now. I can roll with whatever.

I'd repair our education system or replace it with something that works.

The great battles, the battles that decide our destiny and the destiny of generations yet unborn, are not fought on public platforms, but in the lonely hours of the night and in moments of agony.

Let's focus on the funny. ... That's what I'm focused on... This is the gift God gave me. That's what I want to touch in people.