Taking things not as they ought to be, but as they are, I fear it must be allowed that Macchiavelli will always have more disciples than Jesus.

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.

Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.

This is a story about survival.Letting go and learning to let in. Getting along and moving on. The truth about life.The things left unsaid...

Impropriety is the soul of wit.

I had a rough spot about being a goody-goody Mormon, and not drinking or smoking. But I'm kind of grateful I've got this image now. There are no skeletons in my closet. What you see is what you get.

Nobody warned me that when you fall in love, you really fall in love forever.

I didn't have a sweet tooth, but I liked butter, and I liked sauces, and I liked wine and curry and cheeses.

Where the lion's skin will not reach, you must patch it out with the fox's.

I always start out with an idea, even a boring idea, that becomes a question I don't have answers to.

My job makes me travel a lot and too often I'm away from my children, but I don't ever stop being a mom inside my head and my heart. There is no higher love than that.

I find it easier to believe in God than to believe Hamlet was deduced from the molecular structure of a mutton chop.