Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

There are few mortals so insensible that their affections cannot he gained by mildness, their confidence by sincerity, their hatred by scorn or neglect

In fame's temple there is always a niche to be found for rich dunces, importunate scoundrels, or successful butchers of the human race.

Who conquers indolence conquers all other hereditary sins.

Silence is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy.

The quarter of an hour before dinner is the worst that suitors can choose.

The more you speak of yourself, the more you are likely to lie.

Idlers cannot even find time to be idle, or the industrious to be at leisure. We must always be doing or suffering

A moral lesson is better expressed in short sayings than in long discourse.

Suicides pay the world a bad compliment. Indeed, it may so happen that the world has been beforehand with them in incivility. Granted. Even then the retaliation is at their own expense.

By fools, knaves fatten; by bigots, priests are well clothed; every knave finds a gull.

I believe that just because something didn’t go the way you planned it once, it’s no reason not to try again.

The things we love the most are the most disfiguring. Such is our greed for them.

Americans are hidden dragons to me.

The novelist works neither to correct nor to condone, not at all to comfort, but to make what's told alive.

Unalienable rights are essential limitations to all governments.

I have enjoyed earthly happiness, I have lived and loved.

Chess, like mathematics and music, is a nursery for child prodigies.

The Unity Band project has been life-changing for me. I have led many groups of talented musicians, but this is unlike anything else.

The fact is Burke is smarter than two thirds of the Western Australian Labor Party rolled together.

Listening to critics is like letting Muhammad Ali decide which astronaut goes to the moon.