With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions...

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.

It is not until you change your identity to match your life blueprint that you will understand why everything in the past never worked.

Long ago made it a principle of my life to cultivate a positive frame of mind, to strive to project it and to share it with those I meet. It is a principle that has served me well.

Salvation for a race, nation or class must come from within. Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted.

I smoke to fill the potholes in my soul

There is such a thing as truth, but we have a vested interest in not seeing it, in avoiding it.

It's not the hair on your head that matters. It's the kind of hair you have inside.

A 60-story tower in New York evokes a 70-story tower in Chicago [and] a 60-story tower in New York evokes a 70-story tower directly across the street.

The things that I'm talking about not knowing, they're not mysteries of the universe; it's just stuff I thought I would know by the time I was thirty-nine.

I was in the main draw from the start, my opening match was on Court One against Jan Eric Lundquist of Sweden who was about eight in the world at the time.

You become what you think about and focus on the most. See yourself attracting the things you want to accomplish. Thoughts and desires in your mind can become a reality.