“Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.”

The delusions of the past seem fond and foolish. The delusions of the present seem subtle and sane.

Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue.

Just as we are often moved to merriment for no other reason than that the occasion calls for seriousness, so we are correspondingly serious when invited too freely to be amused.

A man who owns a dog is, in every sense of the words, its master; the term expresses accurately their mutual relations. But it is ridiculous when applied to the limited possession of a cat.

The human race may be divided into people who love cats and people who hate them; the neutrals being few in numbers, and, for intellectual and moral reasons, not worth considering.

There is something frightful in being required to enjoy and appreciate all masterpieces; to read with equal relish Milton, and Dante, and Calderon, and Goethe, and Homer, and Scott, and Voltaire, and Wordsworth, and Cervantes, and Molière, and Swift.

The pessimist is seldom an agitating individual. His creed breeds indifference to others, and he does not trouble himself to thrust his views upon the unconvinced.

Love is a malady, the common symptoms of which are the same in all patients.

We cannot hope to scale great moral heights by ignoring petty obligations.

For my part, the good novel of character is the novel I can always pick up; but the good novel of incident is the novel I can never lay down.

Wit is artificial; humor is natural. Wit is accidental; humor is inevitable. Wit is born of conscious effort; humor, of the allotted ironies of fate. Wit can be expressed only in language; humor can be developed sufficiently in situation.

In the stress of modern life, how little room is left for that most comfortable vanity that whispers in our ears that failures are not faults! Now we are taught from infancy that we must rise or fall upon our own merits; that vigilance wins success, and incapacity means ruin

Friendship takes time.

We have but the memories of past good cheer, we have but the echoes of departed laughter. In vain we look and listen for the mirth that has died away. In vain we seek to question the gray ghosts of old-time revelers.

We cannot learn to love other tourists,-the laws of nature forbid it,-but, meditating soberly on the impossibility of their loving us, we may reach some common platform of tolerance, some common exchange of recognition and amenity.

If history in the making be a fluid thing, it swiftly crystallizes.

You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.

If we made atomic bombs, we would bring about a terrible change in the world. Who knows what would happen from this?

Instant gratification is bringing this planet to its knees.

Wealth brings great benefits to the world. Rich people are heros.

If you’re going to America, bring your own food.

But then you need people to bring them to life. So you have to be comfortable with solitude and also with being very social.

Brings [O’Brian’s] achievement to a new height.

Such lightening and thunder will come there has never been seen before, bringing death and destruction.