“Do not Christians and Heathens, and Jews and Gentiles, and poets and philosophers, unite in allowing the starry influences?”

Hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.

Of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness.

A sound head, an honest heart, and an humble spirit are the three best guides through time and to eternity.

Nothing is more completely the child of art than a garden.

We are like the herb which flourisheth most when it is most trampled on.

Those who are too idle to read, save for the purpose of amusement, may in these works acquire some acquaintance with history, which, however inaccurate, is better than none.

Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening.

Credit is like a looking-glass, which when once sullied by a breath, may be wiped clear again; but if once cracked can never be repaired.

Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances!

To all, to each, a fair good-night, and pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.

The misery of keeping a dog is his dying so soon. But, to be sure, if he lived for fifty years and then died, what would become of me?

What a strange scene if the surge of conversation could suddenly ebb like the tide, and show us the real state of people’s minds.

Heaven know its time; the bullet has its billet.

One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name.

The chain of friendship, however bright, does not stand the attrition of constant close contact.

For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.

Individual consciences are fine but individual consciences have to be made manifest.

You soon realize that the peak you’ve climbed was one of the lowest, that the mountain was part of a chain of mountains, that there are still so many, so many mountains to climb And the more you climb, the more you want to climb – even though you’re dead tired.

Civil strife is as much a greater evil than a concerted war effort as war itself is worse than peace.

The Kafka paradox: art depends on truth, but truth, being indivisable, cannot know itself: to tell the truth is to lie. Thus the writer is the truth, and yet when he speaks he lies.

Love is merely the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.

How can I study from below, that which is above?

I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.

When you’re taught to love everyone, to love your enemies, what value does that put on love?