This imperiousness which aids us in all things is merely a fitting authority which comes from superior spirit.

Pettiness of mind, ignorance and presumption are the cause of stubbornness, because stubborn people only want to believe what they themselves can imagine, and they can imagine very few things.

To be too dissatisfied with ourselves is a weakness. To be too satisfied with ourselves is a stupidity.

It is a singular characteristic of love that we cannot hide it where it exists, or pretend it where it does not exist.

We prefer people who are trying to imitate us more than those who are trying to equal us. This is because imitation is a sign of esteem, but the desire to equal others is a sign of envy.

Honest and sincere acts mislead the wicked and cause them to lose their path to their own goals, because mean-spirited people usually believe that people never act without deceit.

It is vain and useless to survey everything that goes on in the world if our study does not help us mend our ways.

Sometimes we praise the way things used to be in order to blame the present, and we esteem what is no longer in order to scorn what is.

Mean-spirited mediocrities, especially those with a smattering of learning, are the most likely to be opinionated. Only strong minds know how to correct their opinions and abandon a bad position.

Even the best-natured people, if uninstructed, are always blind and uncertain. We must take pains to instruct ourselves so that ignorance makes us neither too timid nor too bold.

Criticism should awaken our attention, not inflame our anger. We should listen to, and not flee from, those who contradict us. Truth should be our cause, no matter in what manner it comes to us.

Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the mext moment

Why do we claim to know Jesus Christ, but deny him in our action?

What a wonderful world it could be, when spiritual factions would choose to read sacred writings as colorful metaphors and not as bloody declarations of war. (“Is heaven a place in the sky?”)

Despite what some people have said, President Bush did not want black people to die in New Orleans. However, he did hope they would not relocate to any areas of Texas that he likes to frequent.

Everybody likes to get as much power as circumstances allow, and nobody will vote for a self-denying ordinance.

Nice characters are boring!

Long open panegyric drags at best, And praise is only praise when well address'd.

Algebras (jabbre and maqabeleh) are geometric facts which are proved by propositions five and six of Book two of Elements.

The general tendency [is] to be censorious of the vices to which one has not been tempted.

I just downloaded eleven hundred books onto my Kindle, and now I can’t lift it.