Vices are often habits rather than passions.

The most civilized people are as near to barbarism as the most polished steel is to rust. Nations, like metals, have only a superficial brilliancy.

Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, in complaining of the present, in fearing future.

It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit.

Of every ten persons who talk about you, nine will say something bad, and the tenth will say something good in a bad way.

The absolute ruler may be a Nero, but he is sometimes a Titus or Marc Aurelius; the people is often Nero, but never Marc Aurelius.

To lose one's self in reverie, one must be either very happy, or very unhappy. Reverie is the child of extremes.

Gold like the sun, which melts wax, but hardens clay, expands great souls.

The only thing wealth does for some people is to make them worry about losing it.

The modest man has everything to gain, and the arrogant man everything to lose; for modesty has always to deal with generosity, and arrogance with envy.

Opinions, theories, and systems pass by turns over the grindstone of time, which at first gives them brilliancy and sharpness, but finally wears them out.

He has come to seduce the god of seduction, and oh, has he come prepared.

Where there is simplicity, there are a hundred Angels, but where there is cleverness - there are none.

I thought the secret of life was obvious: be here now, love as if your whole life depended on it, find your life's work, and try to get hold of a giant panda.

I am unable to distinguish clearly between your religious ceremonies and apparently identical behavior at the sporting and cultural functions you have transmitted to me.

The cure for mixed metaphors, I have always found, is for the patient to be obliged to draw a picture of the result.

The people who come to me are the people who are meant to come to me.

I don't need a bodyguard.

If only. The saddest two words in any language.

At the end of the day, the only people a One Voice doctrine silences are those who should be the most loyal.

Otherwise, as Dylan says, if you're not busy being born, you're busy dying.