He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

To read means to borrow; to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.

Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.

He who understands the wise is wise already.

People want to give everybody a pass, but leadership comes at a price.

If you treat your children at home in the same way you treat your animals in the lab, your wife will scratch your eyes out. My wife ferociously warned me against experimenting on her babies.

My wife watches me like a hawk.

Accursed be he who plays with the devil.

I don't think you're dying," I said. "I think you've just got a touch of cancer. He smiled. Gallows humor.

Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will.

If anything is due to a corporation, it is not due to the individual members thereof, nor do the members individually owe what the corporation owes.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who will watch the watchers?

Tim Kaine is your friend's dad who catches you smoking weed at a sleepover and doesn't rat you out but talks to you about brain development.

My mother was the first singer I had contact with. She sang constantly to us around the house, in church.