Is it so unjust that a man should leave the world by the same gate through which he entered it?

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.

Suddenly it all seemed luminously clear. Love had very little to do with fear and emotional sabotage

Why do politicians lie?Because people like being lied to.Just look at any political rally.P.S. You're great!

One of the most significant facts about humanity may finally be that we all begin with the natural equipment to a live a thousand kinds of life but end in the end having lived only one

We cling to hierarchies because our place in a hierarchy is, rightly or wrongly, a major indicator of our social worth.

Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.

I thought a dignified thing to do would be to live in the country by the time I'm 50 and write books

Women are from their very infancy debarred those Advantages with the want of which they are afterwards reproached.

I came up during that time when music, to me, was really music. It wasn't about talking about a woman and calling them a derogatory name or something like that. It was real music.

This [climate change] is potentially so dangerous that we have to act strongly. Do we want to play Russian roulette with two bullets or one?

Don’t get me wrong. Being a mom is no picnic. Raising the kids is the mother’s responsibility. It’s a thankless, solitary job, like sheriff or Pope.