Silence never yet betrayed any one!

The most civilized people are as near to barbarism as the most polished steel is to rust. Nations, like metals, have only a superficial brilliancy.

Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, in complaining of the present, in fearing future.

It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit.

Of every ten persons who talk about you, nine will say something bad, and the tenth will say something good in a bad way.

The absolute ruler may be a Nero, but he is sometimes a Titus or Marc Aurelius; the people is often Nero, but never Marc Aurelius.

To lose one's self in reverie, one must be either very happy, or very unhappy. Reverie is the child of extremes.

Gold like the sun, which melts wax, but hardens clay, expands great souls.

The only thing wealth does for some people is to make them worry about losing it.

The modest man has everything to gain, and the arrogant man everything to lose; for modesty has always to deal with generosity, and arrogance with envy.

Opinions, theories, and systems pass by turns over the grindstone of time, which at first gives them brilliancy and sharpness, but finally wears them out.

I used to think I knew what was right and what was wrong, and who the good guys are, and who the bad guys are. Then the world got very gray, and I didn't know anything for a long time

Desire isn’t appeased by its object, only irritated into something more than desire that can join with the stars to inform the chaotic heavens with sense.

I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease but the doctrine of the strenuous life.

Time in the heart and sequence in the brain-- Such as destroyed Rimbaud and fooled Verlaine. And let us then take godhead by the neck-- And strangle it, and with it, rhetoric.

I read the things that scientists have figured out, and apply what they say is beneficial, but at the end of the day I'm the wrong person to get unchallenged nutritional advice from.

Life is often like that, the best balancing on a knife edge with the worst.

The subject matter is autobiographical, it's all to do with hope and memory and sensuality and involvement, really.

When leaders take back power, when they act as heroes and saviors, they end up exhausted, overwhelmed, and deeply stressed.

What people have to realize is that if one has a firm belief in God and the spirit then one does not make statements that are negative and untrue.

There's some herb that's good for everybody, except for them that thinks they're sick when they ain't.