Piety and holiness of life will propitiate the gods. [Lat., Deos placatos pietas efficiet et sanctitas.]

Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.

We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.

It is not enough to acquire wisdom, it is necessary to employ it.

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

It takes a great deal of strength to be an optimist.

Finishing a painting demands a heart of steel: everything requires a decision, and I find difficulties where I least expect them... It is at such moments that one fully realizes one's own weaknesses.

The human brain is built to compare; it's Darwinian to consider an alternative when one presents itself.

As human beings we are made to surpass ourselves and are truly ourselves only when transcending ourselves.

Don't believe everything you think. You cannot be trusted to tell yourself the truth. Stay in The Word.

My upbringing in Canada made me the person I am. I will always be proud to be a Canadian.

My first book was the most successful debut novel in the UK ever and every one of my books has reached number one in the UK. Clearly the British know brilliance when they see it.

Wonderful," Garan grumbled when he'd gone. "We'll grow a reputation for our kindness to lawbreakers.

I began thinking about my skeleton, this solid, beautiful thing inside me that I would never see.

My brain is just always going and going and going.