Man is perhaps half mind and half matter in the same way as the polyp is half plant and half animal. The strangest creatures are always found on the border lines of species.

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.

Life is surprises, try not to expect everything.

As surely as there is a voyage away, there is a journey home.

You can't fight fire with fire, or fear with fear.

If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It's a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.

You wanna know how good bacon is? To improve other food, they wrap it in bacon.

I've been in one Derby, and this is my third Belmont. But I've never thought of the fact that I haven't won a Triple Crown race. I'm not like that. I always look at the sunshine of things.

I take all of my life lessons, which some people might call 'mistakes,' and apply them to my future so that I keep growing.

I don't understand what I did wrong except live a life that everyone is jealous of.

The ocean is interacting with the surface. There is a possible biosphere that extends from way below the surface to just above the crust.

I shall be but a shrimp of an author.