For a deed to be totally pure, it must be done without any thought of reward, whether worldly or divine.
The most malignant of enemies is the lust which abides within.
We pursue that which retreats from us.
Abroad is unutterably bloody and foreigners are fiends.
Flattery, though a base coin, is the necessary pocket money at court; where, by custom and consent, it has obtained such a currency that it is no longer a fraudulent, but a legal payment.
One advantage to having a kid on the spectrum: they tend to be rule followers. Socially, things are harder for them than most kids.
Hope for the best, survive the worst, find humor wherever you can.
Not armies, not nations, have advanced the race; but here and there, in the course of ages, an individual has stood up and cast his shadow over the world.
Let dull critics feed upon the carcases of plays; give me the taste and the dressing.
Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person; if her face is so shocking that she must in some degree be conscious of it, her figure and her air, she trusts, make ample amends for it.
Aristocracy has three successive ages. First superiority s, then privileges and finally vanities. Having passed from the first, it degenerates in the second and dies in the third.
You only get to keep what you give away.
The wise man realistically accepts as part of life and builds a philosophy to meet them and make the most of them. He lives on the principle of nothing attempted, nothing gained and is resolved that if he fails he is going to fail while trying to succeed.
There are certain events which to each man’s life are as comets to the earth, seemingly strange and erratic portents; distinct from the ordinary lights which guide our course and mark our seasons, yet true to their own laws, potent in their own influences.
Let me look upward into the branches of the flowering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well.
Can an author with reason complain that he is cramped and shackled if he is not at liberty to publish blasphemy, bawdry, or sedition?; all of which are equally prohibited in the freest governments, if they are wise and well-regulated ones.
The guru, if he is gifted, reads the story as any bilingual person might. He does not translate-he understands.
Do not expect too much of the end of the world.
Without taste genius is only a sublime kind of folly. That sure touch which the lyre gives back the right note and nothing more, is even a rarer gift than the creative faculty itself.
The more wit you have, the more good nature you must show, to induce people to pardon your superiority, for that is no easy matter.