Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.
In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.
There was a young man in Rome that was very like Augustus Caesar; Augustus took knowledge of it and sent for the man, and asked him “Was your mother never at Rome?” He answered “No Sir; but my father was.”
The nature of things betrays itself more readily under the vexations of art than in its natural freedom.
Picasso is the reason why I paint. He is the father figure, who gave me the wish to paint.
It would be unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.
Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.
When I paint I am ageless, I just have the pleasure or the difficulty of painting.
I foresee it and yet I hardly ever carry it out as I foresee it. It transforms itself by the actual paint. I don’t in fact know very often what the paint will do, and it does many things which are very much better than I could make it do.
Painting gave meaning to my life which without it would not have had.
Medical men do not know the drugs they use, nor their prices.
We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.
Riches are for spending.
It’s not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned; and not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity.
Nuptial love makes mankind; friendly love perfects it; but wanton love corrupts and debases it.
Of great wealth there is no real use, except in its distribution, the rest is just conceit.
Above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is Nunc dimittis, when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy.
It is natural to die as to be born.