Genius in one grand particular is like life. We know nothing of either but by their effects.

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.

It's a world of sorrow, Oddie, because we make it so.

When a man is small he loves and hates food with a ferocity which soon dims. At six years old his very bowels will heave when such a dish as creamed carrots or cold tapioca appear before him.

The bank...is trying to kill me, but I will kill it!

Is it you and I who are crazy, or is it everybody else?

Good kitchen equipment is expensive, but most items last a lifetime and will pay for themselves over and over again

I don't have a Facebook or Twitter account.

I had intended to have gone into Africa incognito. But the fact that a white man, even an American, was about to enter Africa was soon known all over Zanzibar.

At every opportunity, I wanted to play football.

The revolutionary can have no friendship or attachment, except for those who have proved by their actions that they, like him, are dedicated to revolution.

Macduff: What three things does drink especially provoke? Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine.