“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance.”

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart.

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.

Truth needs not flowers of speech.

This long disease, my life.

Teach me to feel another’s woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another’s misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d

The most positive men are the most credulous.

Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.

Do you find yourself making excuses when you do not perform? Shed the excuses and face reality. Excuses are the loser’s way out. They will mar your credibility and stunt your personal growth.

A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink of it deeply, or taste it not, for shallow thoughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking deeply sobers us again.

Every professional was once an amateur.

The vanity of human life is like a river, constantly passing away, and yet constantly coming on.

There is a majesty in simplicity.

He who tells a lie is not sensible of how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.

Sunlight is painting.

Giving comfort under affliction requires that penetration into the human mind, joined to that experience which knows how to soothe, how to reason, and how to ridicule; taking the utmost care never to apply those arts improperly.

History repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has passed away is never reproduced. It is as utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird.

In the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the nonbelongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks.

It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self knowledge.

Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.

Almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression.

Tear me open and I will bleed in your name. My heart aches from your absence, but in the aching and breaking is where my art is born.