Man is an animal that cannot long be left in safety without occupation; the growth of his fallow nature is apt to run into weeds.

Sunsets in themselves are generally superior to sunrises; but with the sunset we appreciate images drawn from departed peace and faded glory.

Artists will sometimes speak of Rome with disparagement or indifference while it is before them; but no artist ewer lived in Rome and then left it, without sighing to return.

There are no eyes so sharp as the eyes of hatred.

Strategy is the most important department of the art of war, and strategical skill is the highest and rarest function of military genius.

Ambition is not a weakness unless it be disproportioned to the capacity. To have more ambition than ability is to be at once weak and unhappy.

A sluggish, dawdling, and dilatory man may have spasms of activity, but he never acts continuously and consecutively with energetic quickness.

Great men are among the best gifts which God bestows upon a people.

Many persons feel art, some understand it; but few both feel and understand it.

The malignity that never forgets or forgives is found only in base and ignoble natures, whose aims are selfish, and whose means are indirect, cowardly, and treacherous.

Misfortunes have their dignity and their redeeming power.

The flower drifted, light and open, gliding a path through still water like the faint stirrings of a dream.

I would rather be right than President.

For me, I'm OK doing embarrassing things, when it's with somebody else. I'm not the only person to look at.

Hello, cell. How are you? Still dank and dirty? Me? I've taken up a new habit: talking to my cell. It's like talking to myself but slightly more pathetic.

I have a girlfriend, but I don't really want to talk about her. I won't name her. She isn't in show business, has nothing to do with it. So I'd rather just keep her out of it.

China is in its own category - too big to ignore, too repressive to embrace, difficult to influence, and very, very proud.

Sometimes success will get in the way of maturity - at least temporarily.

The common trait of all evil is nothing other than egoism... Basically all human evil comes from what we call the selfishness.