Flatter yourself critically.

Like pollen on a honeybee, flattery clings to the things you tell yourself.

Quotations calcify into clichés.

Cunning authors cut to be quoted.

Quotology disdains no quotations whatsoever, a duty it bears stoutly, with bloodshot eyes and sagging shelves.

At its best, flattery is truth well dressed, and it is best dressed with fine see-through fabrics. Honest flattery can caress a lover, cover up a gaffe, and muffle aggression.

Misquotation is quotology’s swamp. Amateur quoters mix and mangle Shakespeare and Scripture. Professors gaffe and printers bungle. It’s a mess we must wade into.

[D]ifferent people have different quotational gravity.

Flattery works like a drug.

If you flatter yourself properly you will be better able to enjoy yourself. Stretch your joy so that others enjoy you too.

In phrases as brief as a breath worldly wisdom concentrates.

In life, those with heart certainly outdo those with ‘smart’.

It is rarely possible to learn yourself fully.

Torture, including practices like waterboarding, violates the legal and moral standards of all civilized nations.

Jeb Bush cheated on his diet and had a fried Snickers bar, pork on a stick, and a beer. Jeb Bush said he ate it so at least he could see some of his numbers go up.

I listen to a wide variety of music of all genres, but sometimes you just need a cheesy pop song.

Vote Labor and you build castles in the air. Vote Conservative and you can live in them.

Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity.

How often we see the greatest genius buried in obscurity!

Your life's work is to find your life's work-and then to exercise the discipline, tenacity, and hard work it takes to pursue it

every human activity, whether it be love, philosophy, art, or revolution, is carried on with a special intensity in Paris.