Make no enemies; he is insignificant indeed that can do thee no harm.

True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straight forward and simple integrity in another.

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.

The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.

Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.

Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.

Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.

The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.

If you 'don't do politics', trust me - politics will do you.

You have the power within you to choose a life of love and beauty or choose a life of misery and destruction. What you chose, that you will attract and that you will manifest.

Creativity is nature. Nature is creativity.

Fortunately the Omanis are generally very friendly and in no time at all, I had a knight in shining white dishdasha offering to help me.

Slowly, deliberately, the dog turned from the black wolf and walked toward the man. He was a dog, and dogs chose men.

I fear only God, all praises to Him.

The most important advance that the West has yet made is to develop a secularist moral tradition

The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum.

This is what noir is, what it can be when it stops playing nice--blunt force drama stripped down to the bone, then made to dance across the page.

I am not, and have never been, in favor of boycotting Israel.