There are some achievements which are never done in the presence of those who hear of them. Catching salmon is one, and working all night is another.

An author must be nothing if he do not love truth; a barrister must be nothing if he do.

When the ivy has found its tower, when the delicate creeper has found its strong wall, we know how the parasite plants grow and prosper.

Never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.

Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes.

What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?

The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

It has now become the doctrine of a large clan of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man's interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement.

There is no royal road to learning; no short cut to the acquirement of any art.

Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.

The machine was so intricate, so complicated, that he almost got dizzy looking at it. Even in its sad state of disrepair, it was beautiful.

When all else fails, complicate matters

You only get back what you put in

The repetition of small efforts will accomplish more than the occasional use of great talents.

Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man.

Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in another.

At USC, if you're running back there, and you do gain you over 1,500 yards, people see you as a candidate, but not one of the top ones.

Arsenic sticks around and today it's easily found after death if somebody thinks of looking for it, because the problem with arsenic, it isn't looked for in the common tests for drugs.

Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God's infinite mercy, a last resort.

It's quite difficult to write about photography as a photographer. A lot of better photographers than me have declined to do it.