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.

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.

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.

Man loves company - even if it is only that of a small burning candle.

I am interested in being in pictures that I would like to see.

[T]he most viciously intolerant campus I ever visited as a lecturer was Brown, where the humanities program has been gutted by a jejune brand of feminist theory and cultural and media studies.

Your closest and your most dedicated fans will be your ultimate test. They will test you.

Become the director, producer, choreographer of your own story

One of the most powerful feelings in the world is after a really, really long run.

Curran looked back at me. "Why is it you always attract creeps?" "You tell me." Ha! Walked right into that one, yes, he did.

That was one of the virtues of being a pessimist: nothing was ever as bad as you thought it would be.

The joy of youth is to disobey; but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.

A woman's sense of self is defined through her feelings and the quality of her relationships.

Ask counsel of him who rules himself well.