Precisely in proportion to our own intellectual weakness will be our credulity as to those mysterious powers assumed by 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.

Writing enlarges the landscape of the mind.

The world is a terrifying place, more than I ever realized. But if I had my whole life to do over again, that's literally the only thing I'd change. I'd stop being so afraid of other people.

Fighting giants was one thing. Bacchus making into a game was something else.

I can tell you how to get what you want: You've just got to keep a thing in view and go for it and never let your eyes wander to right or left or up or down. And looking back is fatal.

I was constantly amazed by how many people talked me into arresting them.

For some reason I seem to be a massive hit with middle-aged women. I seriously don't know what it is.

When I stepped from hard manual work to writing, I just stepped from one kind of hard work to another.

Never tell a crazy person he’s crazy.

Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.