The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

To read means to borrow; to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.

Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.

He who understands the wise is wise already.

What is a man but another man's memory

Who am I to say that these things might nit be forever? Who is Peter Van Houten to assert as fact the conjecture that our labor is temporary?

In myth, violent death is always justified.

It’s always better to sit on your dignity in private than to stand on it in public.

the last steps of life are ever slow and difficult.

There is no more creative force in the world than the menopausal woman with zest.

It is a good and gentle religion, but inconvenient.

Every president developed his own style. You know that we don't recruit them to a certain standard.

People think I'm strong, but actually I wanted to crawl away. I thought, I'm going to live in the country with my horse and I'll get a nine-to-five; I don't need this.

He brushed my tears from my face. "How did I find you?