If you are poor, avoid wine as a costly luxury; if you are rich, shun it as a fatal indulgence. Stick to plain water.

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.

I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.

Dream tonight of peacock tails, Diamond fields and spouter whales. Ills are many, blessing few, But dreams tonight will shelter you.

Toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.

Meditation and water are wedded for ever.

I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.

Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up.

War should be carried on like a monsoon; one changeless determination of every particle towards the one unalterable aim.

Our behavior is human with a sliver of animal, our souls animal with a sliver of human.

A hero is not measured by the lives that he has saved. A hero is measured by the number of the dead that he did not join.

We can do no great things-only small things with great love.

The perceptions of middle age have their own luminosity.

Marriage is not simply a romantic union between two people it's also a political and economic contract of the highest order.

I've never really had a chance to play a bad guy, and that's something I've always really, really wanted to do. I wanted to experience that really dark side of a person.

Willy Loman: I don't want change, I want Swiss cheese!

People aren't overcome by situations or outside forces. Defeat comes from within.

It is only in Hebrew that you feel the full meaning of it -- all the associations which a different word has.

Politics has become entertainment.