Knowledge acquired too rapidly and without being personally supplemented is never very productive.

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.

Poets are interested primarily in death and commas.

It turns out there is something worse than attending a wedding where you don't know anyone: attending a wedding where you know six people, and they are all your ex-husband's best friends.

There are some days when no matter what I say it feels like I'm far away in another country & whoever is doing the translating has had far too much to drink.

Oh, look at me! I'm making people happy! I'm the Magical Man from Happy-Land, in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane! Oh, by the way, I was being sarcastic.

Doth sickness fill my heart with fear, 'Tis sweet to know that Thou art near; Am I with dread of justice tried, 'Tis sweet to know that Christ hath died.

If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard?

Fame has only the span of the day, they say. But to live in the hearts of people-that is worth something.

May we all grow in grace and peace and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us.

One of the troubles with signings is that you are surrounded by children, and some of them have got colds.

Feminism is a political mistake. Feminism is a mistake made by women's intellect, a mistake which her instinct will recognize.