The proof of a well-trained mind is that it rejoices in which is good and grieves at the opposite.

Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.

We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.

It is not enough to acquire wisdom, it is necessary to employ it.

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

A man can counterfeit love, he can counterfeit faith, he can counterfeit hope and all the other graces, but it is very difficult to counterfeit humility. You soon detect mock humility.

What are you gonna help us with? That very tiny used condom?

Wounds are the means through which we enter the hearts of other people. They are meant to teach us to become compassionate and wise.

One of the things is that in times of severe disorder, you can't worry about the dead, only the living.

If there's anything I hate, it's the vibraphone. And the cha-cha-cha. And Latin rhythms generally.

Romanticism is the mother of kitsch and that there are moments when the child becomes so like its mother that one cannot differentiate between them

You have the health you deserve.

I am the history of the rejection of who I am

Reputation is a hall-mark: it can remove doubt from pure silver, and it can also make the plated article pass for pure.

Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what's really there.