It is not a virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue, when we are led to the performance of duty by pleasure as its recompense.

Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.

We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.

It is not enough to acquire wisdom, it is necessary to employ it.

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

My mum is my beauty icon, because she represents what I think beauty is.

Consider Palin for President? The most powerful job on earth? You don't give the dumb cheerleader the Uzi. That's in the Bible.

I'm a tomboy from Nova Scotia.

If he's been married for 31 years, he's not the same man.

I didn't get into film to win Academy Awards. I wanted to have a conversation with the audience.

A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.

A safe pleasure is a tame pleasure.

My father has been the silent force behind my success. My mother has been a constant source of guidance in my career.

Nothing lives up to what you imagine. It changes, shifts, becomes something else.

Friendship must never be buried under the weight of misunderstanding.