Nature has left this tincture in the blood, That all men would be tyrants if they could.

It is better to have a lion at the head of an army of sheep, than a sheep at the head of an army of lions.

It is never too late to be wise.

Fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear.

All our discontents about what we want appeared to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.

Justice is always Violence to the Party offending, for every Man is Innocent in his own Eyes.

Expect nothing and you'll always be surprised

Necessity makes an honest man a knave.

The best of men cannot suspend their fate; The good die early, and the bad die late.

The height of human wisdom is to bring our tempers down to our circumstances, and to make a calm within, under the weight of the greatest storm without.

If I was made of cake I'd eat myself before somebody else could.

Don’t accept any knowledge or conventional wisdom without critically questioning it first.

The darkness diminishes by dawn of light.

We tend to forget that life can only be defined in the present tense.

But a city is more than a place in space, it is a drama in time.

The moral world is as little exempt as the physical world from the law of ceaseless change, of perpetual flux.

Not for the first time, I reflected that intimacy and romance are not synonymous.

What a man is lies as certainly upon his countenance as in his heart, though none of his acquaintances may be able to read it. The very intercourse with him may have rendered it more difficult.

Can you walk on water? You have done no better than a straw. Can you fly through the air? You are no better than a gnat. Conquer your heart-then you may become somebody.

He had better get married soon, because he's getting uglier every day!