To dare to live alone is the rarest courage since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field than their own hearts in their closet.

True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straight forward and simple integrity in another.

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.

The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.

Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.

Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.

Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.

The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.

I'm not into appearances. I like flaws, I think they make things interesting.

I started to drink heavily, comfortably caught in the tentacle-like clutches of alcohol.

According to Madam Pomfrey, thoughts could leave deeper scars than almost anything else.

To be a good writer, become a good listener.

The nurse of full-grown souls is solitude.

There isn't anything in your life that cannot be changed.

The pulpit is no place for self-promotion. It is a great place for self-deprecation.

I thought you had forgotten me.” “I have spent my life remembering you.

All history involves selection, and it is always human beings who do the selecting.

The Goth character was a difficult thing to get my head round. I'm not really a fan of Goth music. I'm more a piano and guitar man - that's what I love.