The criterion of true beauty is that it increases on examination; if false, that it lessens.

Taste may be compared to that exquisite sense of the bee, which instantly discovers and extracts the quintessence of every flower, and disregards all the rest of it.

Man is the only creature endowed with the power of laughter; is he not also the only one that deserves to be laughed at?

Habit is the cement of society, the comfort of life, and, alas! The root of error.

O wearisome condition of humanity! Born under one law, to another bound; Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity; Created sick, commanded to be sound.

Man is said to be a rational creature; but should it not rather be said, that man is a creature capable of being rational, as we say a parrot is a creature capable of speech?

The mind's eye is perhaps no better fitted for the full radiance of truth, than is the body's for that of the sun.

There are sometimes beauties in a character which would never have appeared but for a defect, and defects which would never have appeared but for a beauty.

Love will sacrifice more to others than friendship, but then it exacts more from them.

How happy is it for us, that the admiration of others should depend so much more on their ignorance than our perfection!

Pleasure is the business of the young, business the pleasure of the old.

To feel the joy of life, sell your pride and get lost in the simplicity and humility.

In every work regard the writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend.

I'm certainly not a linguist. I learned what languages I could learn in order to read books and I can't really speak them. I couldn't have stayed out of jail in most of them.

Every experience, no matter how bad it seems, holds within a blessing of some kind. The goal is to find it.

You are your child's keeper until she's mature enough to keep herself.

Don't eat any foods you've ever seen advertised on television.

The earliest full-length account of a chariot race appears in Book xxiii of the Iliad.

I really don't understand minimalism. It is so polite and boring. If you don't want anyone to notice you, you should stay home and grow your own vegetables.

Hell was made for the inquisitive.

God…is the center of all selves.