“It is easier to pretend to be what you are not than to hide what you really are; but he that can accomplish both has little to learn in hypocrisy.”

Doubt is the vestibule of faith.

The awkwardness and embarrassment which all feel on beginning to write, when they themselves are the theme, ought to serve as a hint to author’s that self is a subject they ought very rarely to descant upon.

Insults are engendered from vulgar minds, like toadstools from a dunghill.

That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time.

Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.

Sturdy beggars can bear stout denials.

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.

Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

That is fine benevolence, finely executed, which, like the Nile, comes from hidden sources.

That is true beauty which has not only a substance, but a spirit; a beauty that we must intimately know, justly to appreciate.

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.

Some persons will tell you, with an air of the miraculous, that they recovered although they were given over; whereas they might with more reason have said, they recovered because they were given over.

There are three kinds of praise, that which we yield, that which we lend, and that which we pay. We yield it to the powerful from fear, we lend it to the weak from interest, and we pay it to the deserving from gratitude.

The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.

Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.

Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.

The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions.

I still have a spiritual base and a spiritual foundation. And my conversation with God is very open-ended. I pray for humility, honestly, because it’s very easy to be caught up in this world.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

Comparisons are easily done, once you’ve had a taste of perfection.

A building should appear to grow easily from its site and be shaped to harmonize with its surroundings if Nature is manifest there.

So basically I did this whole show carrying 100lbs, looking out of one eye, dancing – and then my tits explode at the end. It’s not as easy as it looks!

If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones. You take the tough ones too.