Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.

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.

Hope without love is hopeless.

While you're here, work hard, work smart, and keep an open mind. That's all I ask.

Humor and seriousness are not in opposition to each other.

God made Blues right after he made woman.

Cultural anthropology is more and more rapidly getting to realize itself as a strictly historical science.

An envious man grows lean at another's fatness.

The man of science, like the man of letters, is too apt to view mankind only in the abstract, selecting in his consideration only a single side of our complex and many-sided being.

Art saved me; it got me through my depression and self-loathing, back to a place of innocence.

The most unfortunate thing that happens to a person who fears failure is that he limits himself by becoming afraid to try anything new.

I can no more preach nonviolence to a cowardly man than I can tempt a blind man to enjoy healthy scenes.