There is no Pleasure like that of receiving Praise from the Praiseworthy

Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a Gossip.

People spend their lives in the service of their passions instead of employing their passions in the service of their lives.

Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery.

Vanity makes people ridiculous, pride odious, and ambition terrible.

A lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack, and one trick needs a great many more to make it good.

A fool is in himself the object of pity, until he is flattered.

Zeal for the public good is the characteristic of a man of honor and a gentleman, and must take the place of pleasures, profits and all other private gratifications.

I look upon it as a Point of Morality, to be obliged by those who endeavour to oblige me

Sometimes you have to learn to love what's good for you.

Anything can become music if listened to long enough

Days go by when I do nothing but underline the damp edge of myself.

Always look ahead with great hope and believe in timeless possibilities.

Take my assets - but leave me my organization and in five years I'll have it all back.

The Civil War ravaged the Southern states, while leaving the North untouched.

I did not go into the film business to be symbolized as someone else's vision of me.

Most of my dancing is actually convulsions from having to listen to my own music

No one, I hope, can doubt my wish to see... all mankind exercising self-government, and capable of exercising it. But the question is not what we wish, but what is practicable.

In his eyes I saw all the other possibilities. The dream-world possibilities. The fairytale possibilities. The seemingly impossible possibilities.