To make astute people believe one is what one is not is, in most cases, harder than actually to become what one wishes to appear.

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

To read means to borrow; to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.

Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.

He who understands the wise is wise already.

The relatives of a suicide always take it in bad part that he did not remain alive out of consideration for the family dignity.

Only the strong go crazy. The weak just go along.

You can take Saban's record when he was at Michigan State and when he was a coach in the Big Ten and put it against mine, and he can't compare.

When I would ask women to tell me landays, and they were comfortable enough to do so, they'd tell me ones that reflected the state of their own lives.

The winter wind is loud and wild, Come close to me, my darling child; Forsake thy books, and mate less play; And, while the night is gathering grey, We'll talk its pensive hours away.

And what we know, or think we know, about the universe of space and time is changing very quickly.

Everyone should own a piece of the wealth-producing capital of this country, but not everyone can be a manager. Or should be.

My father was a slave and my people died to build this country and I am going to stay here and have a part of it just like you.

Maybe I'd just figured out there were some things you were better off not knowing

Trust is the great simplifier. If people in business told the truth, 80 to 90 percent of their problems would disappear.