What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

To read means to borrow; to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.

Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.

He who understands the wise is wise already.

A magician must always value his magic effects more than himself, because after few years audience may not remember his name but they will remember his magic effect.

NO!”The scream was the more terrible because he had never expected or dreamed that Professor McGonagall could make such a sound.

It is the earnest hope of our people that the world may see the day when all nuclear weapons are abolished.

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

As the years go by and I make more films, I am increasingly interested in capturing place as a vivid backdrop for my films.

I can picture things, like a painter would, though Im not good at painting, either.

Be yourself. Play within yourself. Play your own game.

Every unjust act, even committed for the sake of a just cause, carries its curse with it.

There is a tension in relationships between wanting to return to the womb, but also wanting to be free. Because sometimes the woman's attentions can be overly maternal, and you want to go, 'Ahhhh!'