Vanity makes people ridiculous, pride odious, and ambition terrible.

Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a Gossip.

People spend their lives in the service of their passions instead of employing their passions in the service of their lives.

Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery.

There is no Pleasure like that of receiving Praise from the Praiseworthy

A lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack, and one trick needs a great many more to make it good.

A fool is in himself the object of pity, until he is flattered.

Zeal for the public good is the characteristic of a man of honor and a gentleman, and must take the place of pleasures, profits and all other private gratifications.

I look upon it as a Point of Morality, to be obliged by those who endeavour to oblige me

Insanity hovered close at hand, like an eager waiter at an expensive restaurant.

A man in a passion, rides a mad horse.

There’s no use in denying it: this has been a bad week. I’ve started drinking my own urine.

When we approach history, we are dealing with a conglomeration of irrational continua. Those who deal with history by nonrational processes are the ones who make history, the actors in it.

No specific technology. My guess is that it was the instinct always to go to maximum scale. Great Britain kept much more of a small shop mindset well into the twentieth century, for instance.

whoever gives the common people food to eat is a good person whoever lets the common people starve is a bad person.

The perfect square lacks corners.

This is the only thing that has seen more parties than us.

Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.

Investment decision should be made on the basis of the most probable compounding of after-tax net worth with minimum risk.