“O marriage! marriage! what a curse is thine, Where hands alone consent and hearts abhor.”

Courage is poorly housed that dwells in numbers; the lion never counts the herd that are about him, nor weighs how many flocks he has to scatter.

Union of hearts, not hands, does a marriage make, and sympathy of mind keeps love awake.

Let never man be bold enough to say, Thus, and no farther shall my passion stray: The first crime, past, compels us into more, And guilt grows fate, that was but choice, before.

Let shining Charity adorn your zeal, The noblest impulse generous minds can feel.

Customs form us all, our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed beliefs; are consequences of our place of birth.

Hide not thy tears; weep boldly, and be proud to give the flowing virtue manly way; it is nature’s mark to know an honest heart by.

Shun fear, it is the ague of the soul! a passion man created for himself–for sure that cramp of nature could not dwell in the warm realms of glory.

Reason gains all people by compelling none.

Art, however innocent, looks like deceiving.

The man with but one idea in his head is sure to exaggerate that to top-heaviness, and thus he loses his equilibrium.

First, then, a woman will, or won’t, – depend on’t; If she will do’t, she will; and there’s an end on’t. But, if she won’t, since safe and sound your trust is, Fear is affront: and jealousy injustice.

Joys, which we do not know, we do not wish.

Shame on those breasts of stone that cannot melt in soft adoption of another’s sorrow.

Law that shocks equity is reason’s murderer.

Order, thou eye of action.

Birth is a shadow. Courage, self-sustained, outlords succession’s phlegm, and needs no ancestors.

Humans, the only self-regarding animals, blessed or cursed with this torturing higher faculty, have always wanted to know why.

I’m a father; I’m a friend. I think I’ve got the biggest heart in the world. A lot of times, that’s not a good thing. It’s a gift and a curse.

Children curse their parents for their wrinkled skin and hoarse voices. Those now old children also want to stop time, but at another time. They want to freeze their own children at the center of time.

It was the year you learned that shooting stars were either a blessing or a curse, depending on what you wanted to believe.

Beer is a gift from the goddesses, a soothing balm given our species to bring joy and comfort in compensation for the curse of self-awareness.

I tend to curse in French more often than I do in English.

The author brings to the table a healthy skepticism of the conventional wisdom, an admirable ability to separate fact from fancy, and an undisguised repugnance for the mumbo-jumbo that’s the curse of so much commentary on anything to do with economics or investment.

Cursed in earth and subdued by death, man found himself beset by time, and his instincts put to the test.