We can more easily avenge an injury than requite a kindness; on this account, because there is less difficulty in getting the better of the wicked than in making one's self equal with the good.

Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.

We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.

It is not enough to acquire wisdom, it is necessary to employ it.

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

For emotion is the enemy of rational argument.

As you go on you realize "Okay I know how to get laughs but am I saying things I want to say? Am I writing jokes that I like?" You get to a point that is that so you move on.

And make death proud to take us.

A cake is a very good test of an oven: if it browns too much on one side and not on the other, it's not your fault - you need to have your oven checked.

I like when the ice gets thin, the going gets rough, the guests get edgy.

My seat has been the seat of kings, and I will have no rascal to succeed me.

Never surrender to the momentum of mediocrity.

How widely its agencies vary,- To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,- As even its minted coins express, Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess, And now of a Bloody Mary.

What matters is who we are, not who we beat.

It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go.