We are half ruined by conformity, but we should be wholly ruined without it.

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value

Goodness comes out of people who bask in the sun, as it does out of a sweet apple roasted before the fire.

Lettuce is like conversation; it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling that you scarcely notice the bitter in it.

It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous.

There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.

To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds, and watch the renewal of life - this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do.

Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure.

A cynic might suggest as the motto of modern life this simple legend-"just as good as the real.

Perhaps nobody ever accomplishes all that he feels lies in him to do; but nearly every one who tries his power touches the walls of his being.

Nature is, in fact, a suggester of uneasiness, a promoter of pilgrimages and of excursions of the fancy which never come to any satisfactory haven.

What is existence for but to be laughed at if men in their twenties have already attained the utmost?

Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge.

Happiness or satisfaction consists only in the enjoyment of those objects which are by nature suited to our several particular appetites, passions, and affections.

God doesn't work through us because we're flawless; rather, He works through us in spite of our imperfections.

I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write.

Cities are gentrified by the following types of people in sequence: first the risk-oblivious (artists), then the risk-aware (developers), finally the risk adverse (dentists from New Jersey).

If you didn't have some sense of idealism, then what is there to sustain you?

Read two newspapers a day. And not just online. Hold them in your hands. Get ink on your fingers.

Fear will always knock on your door. Just don't invite it in for dinner. And for heaven's sake, don't offer it a bed for the night.

When two intelligent parties disagree, that's when the potential for learning and moving ahead begins.