“Even success softens not the heart of the envious.”

To our own sorrows serious heed we give, But for another?s we soon cease to grieve.

He is gifted with genius who knoweth much by natural inspiration.

For lawless joys a bitter ending waits.

Unsung, the noblest deed will die.

Finding that the middle condition of life is by far the happiest, I look with little favor upon that of princes.

Forge thy tongue on an anvil of truth and what flies up, though it be but a spark, will have light.

There is a mortal breed most full of futility. In contempt of what is at hand, they strain into the future, hunting impossibilities on the wings of ineffectual hopes.

Man’s pleasure is a short time growing And it falls to the ground As quickly.

It is God that accomplishes all term to hopes, God, who overtakes the flying eagle, outpasses the dolphin in the sea; who bends under his strength the man with thoughts too high.

Often silence is the wisest thing for a man to heed.

Time is the turning over of days, works change for better or worse.

Sweet is war to those who know it not.

Humble in a humble state and great in greatness, I will work out the divinity that is busy within my mind.

Law, the king of all mortals and immortals.

Even genius is tied to profit.

The test of any man lies in action.

If your way of life is writing, then everything that happens becomes a sentence.

I do think I have an ability to record sensual and emotional facts and factoids, to construct a convincing surface of what life feels like, both physical life and emotional life.

The Last Argument of Kings.

Wars–and what is war except crime on a mass scale?–destroy rather than produce.

You remember too much,” my mother said to me recently. “Why hold onto all that?” And I said, “where can I put it down?

A boy and a girl started dating after he backed his car into hers.

Lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.

I thrive on that; I rise to the occasion of the circumstances.