Man is ready to die for an idea, provided that idea is not quite clear to him.

We endeavor to stuff the universe into the gullet of an aphorism.

We mourn the transitory things and fret under the yoke of the immutable ones.

To judge a man's character by only one of its manifestations is like judging the sea by a jugful of its water.

In the spider-web of facts, many a truth is strangled.

Praises for our past triumphs are as feathers to a dead bird.

A man is most accurately judged by how he treats those who are not in a position either to retaliate or to reciprocate.

With the stones we cast at them, geniuses build new roads with them.

It is not true that men prefer foolish women. Rather they prefer women who can simulate foolishness whenever necessary, which is the very core of intelligence.

Avarice is fear sheathed in gold.

Reason is the shepherd trying to corral life's vast flock of wild irrationalities.

Fictions are realities we don't think of, that are happening to people we know nothing about.

If God made anything better than women, I think he kept it for himself.

I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves.

I love antique architecture, so if I have any indulgences, I have owned and renovated and reconstructed a lot of old houses.

If a man does something silly, people say, 'Isn't he silly?' If a woman does something silly, people say, 'Aren't women silly?

In middle school I wrote a paper on Hemingway and none of the sentences had more than five words.

Turn the other cheek too often and you get a razor through it.

When we smile, the world smiles with us: each experience of joy is an experience of joy for all people and a victory for human kind.

The leaven of true leadership cannot lift others unless we are with and serve those to be led.

Sometimes that's all life is... One desperate act after another.