“The sure mark of one born with noble qualities is being born without envy.”

No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.

The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.

We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.

The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest.

Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised.

As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.

One forgives to the degree that one loves.

We have no patience with other people’s vanity because it is offensive to our own.

Never give anyone the advice to buy or sell shares, because the most benevolent price of advice can turn out badly.

What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.

There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.

Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.

However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.

It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.

If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could never harm us.

The accent of a man’s native country remains in his mind and his heart, as it does in his speech.

… photography, like all camera-made images such as film and video, effaces the marks of its making (and maker) at the click of a shutter. A photograph appears to be self-generated – as though it had created itself.

The world is constantly changing. You’re constantly learning and you have to be willing to get off your mark

You just came wild and sexy all over my hand and even left some claw marks on my back to prove it. Don’t go getting shy on me now. ‘Cause baby, before the night is over you will be naked in my bed.

Lost journals are steps back home, like the mending of broken bones, like scars that act as patches to my soul, like the measurement marks on my mother’s wall that show just how much I’ve grown.

The mark of an educated man is the ability to make a reasoned guess on the basis of insufficient information.

Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.

I know the Gospel according to Mark better than I know any sura in the Quran.

I marked their location in case Kell wanted to blow them up or something.” “I don’t have to blow up everything I see. I just like to.