The acquirements of science may be termed the armour of the mind; but that armour would be worse than useless, that cost us all we had, and left us nothing to defend.

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.

I could eat a knob at night.

I don’t wish to be successful but I definitely wish to be successful in helping someone, sometime for something good.

There's nothing an artist needs more - even more than excellent tools and stamina - than a deadline.

Our officers and men behaved like men who are determined to be free.

I respect a system that says we're going to put every bit of pressure on anybody we have to put it on to get to the drug dealer who is bringing his poison into the country.

If you really want to do it, you do it. There are no excuses.

I was ruined before I got started. I say ruined, but I could say blessed; I was too far gone to believe in it. And I'm shocked how generation after generation repeats the behavior.

I was extremely shy and had a terrible fear of public speaking. But I had fallen in love with stand-up.

At the heart of the problem is the fact that the United States is a racially divided nation where extreme racial inequalities continue to persist.

One person can't know or like everything, so an editor needs collaborators whose opinions and expertise he values and can trust.