The illusion that times that were are better than those that are has probably pervaded all ages.

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.

It is impossible to enslave, mentally or socially, a bible-reading people. The principles of the bible are the groundwork of human freedom.

Go West, young man, go West. There is health in the country, and room away from our crowds of idlers and imbeciles.

Common sense is very uncommon.

The darkest hour in any man's life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it.

We are not one people. We are two peoples. We are a people for Freedom and a people for Slavery. Between the two, conflict is inevitable.

I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample underfoot.

A cigar has "...a fire at one end and a fool at the other."

Ah! if the pulpit would practice what it preaches, then all would be well.

Journalism kills you, but it keeps you alive as long as you're doing it.

So that's why one of my rules of parody writing is that it's gotta be funny regardless of whether you know the source material. It has to work on its own merit.

In the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation; now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History?

Study continuously, developing yourself into a better person, more sensitive to things in nature. Spend years in getting ready.

An actor's life is the shadow of a cloud, the echo of a sound, the memory of a dream, nothing come of nothing. The finest actor does not create, he is but a translator of another man's work.

I could always throw the ball pretty well and I worked pretty hard at learning how to play the game. But I didn't consider it work as a kid, since I just loved playing baseball.

I was out on the shooting range twice a week [for Skyfall]. I worked out with a personal trainer for two hours a day, five days a week. So, it was quite demanding!

It was the price of survival. The cost of his people's last, desperate gamble: To rid his new home of humanity, he had to become human. And being human, he had to overcome his humanity.

The notion of getting under the hood and explaining how something works, that's fairly familiar territory to me.

I only drink to steady my nerves... sometimes I'm so steady I don't move for months.