How seldom is generosity perfect and pure! How often do men give because it throws a certain inferiority on those who receive, and superiority on themselves!

Taste may be compared to that exquisite sense of the bee, which instantly discovers and extracts the quintessence of every flower, and disregards all the rest of it.

Man is the only creature endowed with the power of laughter; is he not also the only one that deserves to be laughed at?

Habit is the cement of society, the comfort of life, and, alas! The root of error.

O wearisome condition of humanity! Born under one law, to another bound; Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity; Created sick, commanded to be sound.

Man is said to be a rational creature; but should it not rather be said, that man is a creature capable of being rational, as we say a parrot is a creature capable of speech?

The mind's eye is perhaps no better fitted for the full radiance of truth, than is the body's for that of the sun.

The criterion of true beauty is that it increases on examination; if false, that it lessens.

There are sometimes beauties in a character which would never have appeared but for a defect, and defects which would never have appeared but for a beauty.

Love will sacrifice more to others than friendship, but then it exacts more from them.

How happy is it for us, that the admiration of others should depend so much more on their ignorance than our perfection!

I’ve got something so lovely to think about that I’d like to go back and sit down in the garden, and just think and think until dark without being interrupted by anybody.

Someone can only be vampiric if you allow it.

I strongly believe the black culture spends too much time, energy and effort raising, praising, and teasing our black children about the dubious glories of professional sports.

I'd rather let the world down than to allow the world to let me down.

Whenever anyone says, 'theoretically', they really mean, 'not really'.

The DS represents a critical moment for Nintendo's success over the next two years. If it succeeds, we rise to the heavens, if it fails, we sink into hell.

Too much talking these days. Talk talk talk. This country would get along much better if people learned how to suffer in silence.

Insanity is to behave like someone that you are not.

Way too many people are trying to do the same thing with their lives.