Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.
Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to remain silent.
Evil spreads with the wind; truth is capable of speading even against it.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
Those who love to be feared fear to be loved.
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.
We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand.
Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
It takes vision and courage to create -- it takes faith and courage to prove.
Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value.
Antiques are things one generation buys, the next generation gets rid off, and the following generation buys at auction at amazing prices.
Hollywood is a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for stars.
The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.
A mother's life, you see, is one long succession of dramas, now soft and tender, now terrible. Not an hour but has its joys and fears.
Military power wins battles, but spiritual power wins wars.
I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.
One cat in a house is a sign of loneliness, two of barrenness, and three of sodomy.
Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine.
The happiest times of humanity are the blank pages in the book of history.
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.
A conquered nation is like a man with cancer: he can think of nothing else.
Death is terrifying, but it would be even more terrifying to find out that you are going to live forever and never die.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Love is energy of life.
You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.
Hope is tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment.
Marriage, like death, is a debt we owe to nature.
A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.
Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.
Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.
The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
First you use machines, then you wear machines, and then ...? Then you serve machines.
Any man who does not have his inner world to translate is not an artist.
None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
Whoever is new to power is always harsh.
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty.
How happy would many people live if they cared about other people's affairs as little as about their own.
Before the wedding we want to love. After the wedding we have to.
Knowledge is power, if you know it about the right person.
To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art; men can only make us feel small in the wrong way.
From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.
