We like to know the weakness of eminent persons; it consoles us for our inferiority.

The pleasures of the world are deceitful; they promise more than they give. They trouble us in seeking them, they do not satisfy us when possessing them, and they make us despair in losing them.

Temperance adds zest to pleasure.

We live with our defects as with the odors we carry about us: we do not perceive them, but they incommode those who approach us.

The first rule for speaking well is to think well.

Politeness costs little and yields much.

One of the duties of old-age, is the management of time. The less that remains to us, the more valuable we ought to consider it.

Would you be esteemed? Live with persons that are estimable.

Simplicity is oftenest an adroit pretence.

We can easily forgive want of means; but littleness, with means, is disgusting.

The most necessary disposition to relish pleasures is to know how to be without them.

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.

Whenever you hear a man prating about the Constitution, spot him as a traitor.

God loves us NOT because we're lovable, because He is love. Not because He needs to receive, because He delights to give.

The thing which grieves and oppresses my heart with respect to poor Scotland, is the hardness of heart manifest in the levity and cruelty with which they speak of others.

Never forget that the circumstances of your life for tomorrow are molded by your mental conduct today.

The silence that makes it possible to hear God speak also makes it possible for us to hear the world's words for what they really are - tinny and unconvincing lies.

I don't use e-mail or a computer. I would be so inundated that I wouldn't be able to get any work done. Instead, I do everything in person or on the phone.

Protecting biodiversity is just as important and critical to the survival of mankind as stabilizing the climate. Species protection and climate are interdependent.

And so, whether they came here on the Mayflower, on a slave ship, or on an airplane from Havana, we are all descendants of the men and women who built here the nation that saved the world.

You aren't afraid of throwing yourself in the path of danger, but you're terrified of letting anyone in.