Genius, in one respect, is like gold; numbers of persons are constantly writing about both, who have neither.

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.

There was no way a world as corrupted as this could be saved or all of the wrongdoers punished.

Treachery though at first very cautious in the end betrays itself.

All the things she planned to feel, the way she planned to look and seem, the appropriate things she planned to say. None of them came to pass.

Sometimes I even cut myself to see how much it bleeds It's like adrenaline, the pain is such a sudden rush for me.

I wish sometimes you had a few bad motives, you might understand a little more about human beings.

The phone rings and there's another Broadway show or another TV series or a movie. That's the gamble you take.

How very satisfactory those discussions must be, where each party retains their own opinion!

But work a year and sleep an hour, and sleep a night and sing a day, And take a little wine and love, and when you feel religious—pray.

There is an ancient saying, famous among men, that thou shouldst not judge fully of a man's life before he dieth, whether it should be called blest or wretched.

For Heaven's sake discard the monstrous wig which makes the English judges look like rats peeping through bunches of oakum.