Our wealth is often a snare to ourselves, and always a temptation to others.

True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straight forward and simple integrity in another.

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.

The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.

Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.

Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.

Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.

The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.

If you are the light of peace there will be no darkness of hatred.

Perfectionists are neurotic people. The world is perfectly beautiful in its imperfection.

Democratic forms of government are vulnerable to mass prejudice, the so-called tyranny of the majority.

Most phenomenal startup teams create businesses that ultimately fail. Why? They built something that nobody wanted.

I was very drawn to music of all types, from Beethoven to Jimi Hendrix. There were musicians and composers who obviously were expressing a vision that was beyond the mundane.

Pulp existed for 12 years before we got famous. Now, you could say that was just lack of imagination, but it's some kind of quality isn't it? Tenacity. You could also say it was sloth.

George Bush has met more foreign heads of state than I have. But a substantial number of them were dead.

We have infinite trouble in solving man-made mysteries; it is only when we set out to discover "the secret of God" that our difficulties disappear.

Forgive offences by the million. And if you love all unselfishly, all will by degrees come to love one another.

[...] to judge from the Internet postings that people have sent me, probably most of what you learned [about me] was nonsense.