Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs, Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes, Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

If you cannot be the master of your language, you must be its slave. If you cannot examine your thoughts, you have no choice but to think them, however silly they may be.

A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

But Thy good word informs my soul How I may climb to heaven.

Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.

Literature is my utopia.

Being a woman is of special interest only to aspiring male transsexuals. To actual women it is merely a good excuse not to play football.

Many blunder in business through inability or an unwillingness to adopt new ideas. I have seen many a success turn to failure also, because the thought which should be trained on big things is cluttered up with the burdensome detail of little things.

Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.

History's like a story in a way: it depends on who's telling it.

Our country is the world--our countrymen are mankind.

A closed mouth catches no flies.

I have the feeling that in a balanced life one should die penniless. The trick is dismantling.

I will go wash; And when my face is fair, you shall perceive Whether I blush or no.

He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others.

Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! virtue is at hand.

To wish for death is a coward's part.

No wonder if the Christians made an impression out of all proportion to their numbers. Conviction in the midst of waverers, fiery energy in a world of disillusion, purity in an age of easy morals, firm brotherhood in a loose society, heroic courage in a time of persecution, formed a problem that could not be set aside, however polite society might affect to ignore it: and the religion of the future turned on the answer to it. Would the world be able to explain it better than the Christians, who said it was the living power of the risen Saviour?

Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.

I fly from pleasure, because pleasure has ceased to please: I am lonely because I am miserable.