We ask advice but we mean approbation.

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.

When you're feeding the second coachload of tourists that day you aren't thinking about the birthday party for fifty next week.

I've only had two rules: Do all you can and do it the best you can. It's the only way you ever get that feeling of accomplishing something.

I was fifteen in college at Tulane. I lied about my age in college so that I could be normal socially. So that girls would go out with me and stuff like that. I just said I was normal age.

At some point, the world is going to have to bite the bullet and accept a huge downsizing in its way of life to bring the assets-to-debt ratio back in touch with reality.

To think someone can go out and sell something about you is really disgusting. I'm much more careful now.

Usually the Indian people are outsiders who have to look up at the people who look down.

I couldn't cut up a frog, and I certainly couldn't perform surgery. I'm better at making it possible for other people.

Whether I give to a beggar or not, his existence puts me in the wrong.

My dear Tom, Delighted to get your letter. Do write again. This life is terrible and I don't understand how it can be endured.

In his eyes I saw all the other possibilities. The dream-world possibilities. The fairytale possibilities. The seemingly impossible possibilities.