“True wit is nature to advantage dressed; What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.”

What is it to be wise? ‘Tis but to know how little can be known, To see all others’ faults, and feel our own.

Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe, Are lost on hearers that our merits know.

The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man’s own eyes when they look upon his own person.

An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie; for an excuse is a lie guarded.

Beauty draws us with a single hair.

Passions are the gales of life.

We may see the small value God has for riches, by the people he gives them to.

To swear is neither brave, polite, nor wise.

Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound, Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.

As with narrow-necked bottles; the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring out.

There is but one way I know of conversing safely with all men; that is, not by concealing what we say or do, but by saying or doing nothing that deserves to be concealed.

And seem to walk on wings, and tread in air.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance.

Women use lovers as they do cards; they play with them a while, and when they have got all they can by them, throw them away, call for new ones, and then perhaps lose by the new all they got by the old ones.

You purchase pain with all that joy can give and die of nothing but a rage to live.

A little learning is a dangerous thing.

Thoughts and words form your mental image. And since we become what we picture be sure your thoughts and words express prosperity and blessing rather than poverty and defeat.

I sing to the realists, people who accept it like it is. I express problems. There are tears when it’s sad and smiles when it’s happy. It seems simple to me, but for some people, I guess feelin’ takes courage.

Creating characters is just another way to express a type and put that type to use.

What I’m fighting for now in my work… for an expression relevant to all manner of blacks, poems I could take into a tavern, into the street, into the halls of a housing project.

The present is big with the future, the future might be read in the past, the distant is expressed in the near.

It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.

In my judgment an organic machine new to nature never arises, since it always contains an infinity of organs so that it can express, in its own way, the whole universe; indeed, it always contains all past and present times.

I think it’s important for people to be themselves and express themselves through their makeup or their hair or their perfume or whatever it may be.