the most comfortable characteristic of the period [1775-1825], and the one which incites our deepest envy, is the universal willingness to accept a good purpose as a substitute for good work.

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

It has been wisely said that we cannot really love anybody at whom we never laugh.

What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh!

It takes time and trouble to persuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things we ought to do.

Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.

For indeed all that we think so new to-day has been acted over and over again, a shifting comedy, by the women of every century.

No man pursues what he has at hand. No man recognizes the need of pursuit until that which he desires has escaped him.

There are few things more wearisome in a fairly fatiguing life than the monotonous repetition of a phrase which catches and holds the public fancy by virtue of its total lack of significance.

It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.

For my part, the good novel of character is the novel I can always pick up; but the good novel of incident is the novel I can never lay down.

God wants to make us understand and draw our attention to how important it is to learn to value one another

When the poor give to the rich, the devil laughs.

People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.

When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique.

Life experience is the best teacher.

What sense or thought do they have? They follow the popular singers, and they take the crowd as their teacher.

I don't think life is about a pace, living slow or fast. I think you just live, y'know what I mean?

[My subjects] look lost because that is how I see life. I think we are all a bit lost, lost in a world we can't understand.

I have a phenomenal memory. I remember every single thing that anybody said to me, ever did to me, who was nice to me and who was not nice to me.

It's just a crime that people don't take the time and make the effort to have a conversation if it's bothering them that much.