The nature of man is evil; what is good in him is artificial.

If the quickness of the mind and the fluency of the tongue are too punctilious and sharp, moderate them in your activity and rest.

If there is no dull and determined effort, there will be no brilliant achievement.

Music is a fantastic peacekeeper of the world, it is integral to harmony, and it is a required fundamental of human emotion.

Man's nature is evil; goodness is the result of conscious activity.

Since the nature of people is bad, to become corrected they must be taught by teachers and to be orderly they must acquire ritual and moral principles.

Pride and excess bring disaster for man.

When people lack teachers, their tendencies are not corrected; when they do not have ritual and moral principles, then their lawlessness is not controlled.

Human nature refers to what is in people but which they cannot study or work at achieving.

Human nature is such that people are born with a love of profit If they follow these inclinations, they will struggle and snatch from each other, and inclinations to defer or yield will die.

You look upon the seasons with expectation and await them: wy not seize the seasonal opportunities and exploit them?

I can write with authority only about what I know well, which means that I end up using surface details of my own life in my fiction.

I write because it's a way of presenting something without having to be there.

Take advantage of this great opportunity in your life to live it well, to be good, to have good works, and to influence other people for good.

I enjoy the hell out of writing but don't like what follows: promotion and publicity, which I always strive to keep to a minimum, sometimes to my publisher's dismay.

The vote means nothing to women. We should be armed.

You're shagging a woman who can turn into a dragon? Blast you, Charles, I am sick with envy!

Do not desire your neighbor's wife in vain.

What has six balls and screws Texans? The Texas Lottery.

Whoever interrupts the conversation of others to make a display of his fund of knowledge, makes notorious his own stock of ignorance.

Habits and customs are a convenience devised for the support of timid natures who dare not allow their souls free play.