Though her mien carries much more invitation than command, to behold her is an immediate check to loose behaviour; to love her was a liberal education.

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.

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

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.

Think of me as an impetuous Hegel, drunk with power, and also, regular drunk.

A loss may be sometimes a gain.

We have to destroy the radioactive brain of Madame Curie.

If truth prevails, the contributions of a courageous physician and a brilliant engineer to the conquest of waterborne disease will still be remembered in another hundred years.

My faith isn't very churchy, it's a pretty personal, intimate thing and has been a huge source of strength in moments of life and death.

I live to harass white folks.

True will-power and courage are not on the battlefield, but in everyday conquests over our intertia, laziness, boredom.

It seems to be part of the human condition to need someone you can look down on. I still don't get that one.

Nature has granted the use of life like a loan, without fixing any day for repayment.

Now there cannot be first principles for men, unless the Divinity has revealed them; all the rest--beginning, middle, and end--isnothing but dreams and smoke.