For my boyhood's friend hath fallen, the pillar of my trust, The true, the wise, the beautiful, is sleeping in the dust.

Sunsets in themselves are generally superior to sunrises; but with the sunset we appreciate images drawn from departed peace and faded glory.

Artists will sometimes speak of Rome with disparagement or indifference while it is before them; but no artist ewer lived in Rome and then left it, without sighing to return.

There are no eyes so sharp as the eyes of hatred.

Strategy is the most important department of the art of war, and strategical skill is the highest and rarest function of military genius.

Ambition is not a weakness unless it be disproportioned to the capacity. To have more ambition than ability is to be at once weak and unhappy.

A sluggish, dawdling, and dilatory man may have spasms of activity, but he never acts continuously and consecutively with energetic quickness.

Great men are among the best gifts which God bestows upon a people.

Man is an animal that cannot long be left in safety without occupation; the growth of his fallow nature is apt to run into weeds.

Many persons feel art, some understand it; but few both feel and understand it.

The malignity that never forgets or forgives is found only in base and ignoble natures, whose aims are selfish, and whose means are indirect, cowardly, and treacherous.

Love is the best wisdom.

The ability of one to affect many is scaling exponentially — and it's scaling for good and it's scaling for evil.

On the occasion of every accident that befalls you ... inquire what power you have for turning it to use.

As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers - and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.

There are atheists, and I love them. In fact, I died for them.

For unknown foods, the nose acts always as a sentinal and cries. 'Who goes there?'

You might be a redneck if you can amuse yourself for more than an hour with a fly swatter.

Only one guy can be world champion, and so if everyone else thought they were failures you'd have no one left on the grid.

Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else - very rarely to those who say to themselves, 'Go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!'.

I'm the worst at picking what movies are going to do well. I have no idea. I'm really surprised if a movie I like does well.