The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.
As the French say, there are three sexes - men, women, and clergymen.
In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.
Manners are like the shadows of virtues, they are the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love and respect.
It is safest to be moderately base - to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good, and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue.
The object of preaching is to constantly remind mankind of what they keep forgetting; not to supply the intellect, but to fortify the feebleness of human resolutions.
Science is his forte, and omniscience his foible.
Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.
A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves obscure men whose timidity prevented them from making a first effort.
What you don't know would make a great book.
A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.
Poverty is no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.
Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.
Never talk for half a minute without pausing and giving others a chance to join in.
Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due.
Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.
It resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated, often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.
I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.
To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in, and scramble through as well as we can.
Find fault when you must find fault in private, and if possible sometime after the offense, rather than at the time.
