I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies.

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.

It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit.

Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.

People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.

I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Ye diners out from whom we guard our spoons.

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.

Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.

Trust is easy to give but hard to keep also it's hard to achieve but easy to lose

He shall fare well who confronts circumstances aright.

There is no better feeling than when you write something you know is a piece of you and that, at some point, is going to communicate with someone else.

Hell is not a subject to be avoided; it is a place to be avoided. Thinking about Hell is actually a very good idea. It's a good way to keep ourselves out of it.

My problem is that people have been writing books about me.A lot of things that people write about you are incorrect, but you don't fight about it.

I don't think there's anything I can't do. I have no regrets.

I grew up with baseball; I played in Little League and went to games with my dad. But I, as I grew up, became more of a basketball fanatic than a baseball one.

I admired those girls who did Playboy, Sports Illustrated, and Victoria's Secret. I love looking at them too, but I never went in that direction. I just stayed in fashion.

Nature has placed nothing so high that virtue can not reach it. [Lat., Nihil tam alte natura constituit quo virtus non possit eniti.]

Motherhood didn't make you stronger; it made you vulnerable and afraid of what death could steal from you.