We are oftener deceived by being told some truth than no truth.

Taste may be compared to that exquisite sense of the bee, which instantly discovers and extracts the quintessence of every flower, and disregards all the rest of it.

Man is the only creature endowed with the power of laughter; is he not also the only one that deserves to be laughed at?

Habit is the cement of society, the comfort of life, and, alas! The root of error.

O wearisome condition of humanity! Born under one law, to another bound; Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity; Created sick, commanded to be sound.

Man is said to be a rational creature; but should it not rather be said, that man is a creature capable of being rational, as we say a parrot is a creature capable of speech?

The mind's eye is perhaps no better fitted for the full radiance of truth, than is the body's for that of the sun.

The criterion of true beauty is that it increases on examination; if false, that it lessens.

There are sometimes beauties in a character which would never have appeared but for a defect, and defects which would never have appeared but for a beauty.

Love will sacrifice more to others than friendship, but then it exacts more from them.

How happy is it for us, that the admiration of others should depend so much more on their ignorance than our perfection!

Indeed, bribery, favoritism, and corruption in a great variety of forms were rampant not only in politics, but in all levels of society.

All believers are called to be holy in mind, body, and spirit (1 Peter 1:15).

I think her friends were worried that the bulimia might come back, about some psychological slide, and she was given breathing space to some extent by the media as much as she ever has been.

If life is a birthday cake let my face be smeared with its icing of cognac and kindness.

I don't read the magazines that make things up about people. I know what the truth is. I don't sort of indulge in my own fodder. I don't really care what they write about me.

For now indeed is the race of iron; and men never cease from labour and sorrow by day and from perishing by night.

I'm always tempted to say, 'Nah, that won't work.' But I think you should be willing to try ideas out before saying no. Be open-minded.

If you never saw the stars, candles were enough.

It's important to read a book, but also to hold the book, to smell the book... it's perfume, it's incense, it's the dust of Egypt.

The inner world: those spiritual apartments to which we are reluctant to admit strangers.