The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.

Men trust their ears less than their eyes.

The secret of success is that it is not the absence of failure, but the absence of envy.

Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man that would have laid dormant in its absence.

In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons.

Egypt is the gift of the Nile.

Where wisdom is called for, force is of little use.

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.

It is better to be envied than pitied.

All of life is action and passion, and not to be involved in the actions and passions of your time is to risk having not really lived at all.

Perseverance is the steady pathway toward prevailing.

That fear of missing out on things makes you miss out on everything.

We all assume the worst the best we can.

Now everybody is mafia. You got the Russian mafia, the Mexican mafia. Everybody is mafia these days.

Life and death are one thread.

We must not become so preoccupied looking for "major" miracles that we miss all the daily ones.

I see lots of women having beautiful children later in life. And, if not, just freeze your eggs!

I wrote to explain my own life to myself, stories are the vessels I use to interpret the world to myself.

God was created by evolution, inside the imagination of a primate.

Language is the machine of the poet.