Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.

Books minister to our knowledge, to our guidance, and to our delight, by their truth, their uprightness, and their art.

Science is the systematic classification of experience.

Originality is independence, not rebellion; it is sincerity, not antagonism.

It is unhappily true that much insincere Literature and Art, executed solely with a view to effect, does succeed by deceiving the public.

No man ever made a great discovery without the exercise of the imagination.

We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.

The true function of philosophy is to educate us in the principles of reasoning and not to put an end to further reasoning by the introduction of fixed conclusions.

Insincerity is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength.

To write much, and to write rapidly, are empty boasts. The world desires to know what you have done, and not how you did it.

Good writers are of necessity rare.

You already made the choice, you are simply here to walk it.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/ But in ourselves.

I'm not a figurehead for anything. I was a single mom with two kids. What else was I going to do? It was either be in a band or be a waitress.

It was thought that to rally Islam against godless communism would be doing the Soviet Union a very bad turn indeed, and that, in fact, transpired.

I can control the flow of paint: there is no accident.

This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man will never on his heap of mud keep still.

The last to learn of gossip are the parties concerned

Show me an objective worthy of war and I will go along with you.

The way I have progressed as a writer over the years is to try and stay true to the principles I absorbed.

By contrast, China is a repressive regime that denies its citizens the essential freedoms of religion, political dissent and representative self-government.