“Men’s arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.”

Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow; but the misfortune is that in this particular case, the substance belongs to the shadow, the emptiness to its cause.

There were moments of despondency when Shakespeare thought himself no poet, and Raphael no painter; when the greatest wits have doubted the excellence of their happiest efforts.

Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.

It is good to act as if. It is even better to grow to the point where it is no longer an act.

It is astonishing how much more people are interested in lengthening life than improving it.

Most females will forgive a liberty rather than a slight.

Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.

The avarice of the miser may be termed the grand sepulchral of all his other passions, as they successively decay.

I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities, improve their talents but impair their virtues; and strengthen their minds but weaken their morals.

Human foresight often leaves its proudest possessor only a choice of evils.

Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, transitory, contingent, almost as the winds and waves that bring it to our shores.

The true measure of your character is what you do when nobody’s watching.

To cure us of our immoderate love of gain, we should seriously consider how many goods there are that money will not purchase, and these the best; and how many evils there are that money will not remedy, and these the worst.

It is not so difficult a task to plant new truths, as to root out old errors; for there is this paradox in men, they run after that which is new, but are prejudiced in favor of that which is old.

Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.

A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible.

The essay form has superceded the novel as the vehicle that best suggests the prevailing apocalyptic gestalt, and as the talisman that is most able to repel the onset of paralysing dread.

I come from a theater background

I was reading the paper and saw a cartoon with Ray Kelly frisking Obama, and I was like “Wait, what’s happening?” so I Googled it.

We are definitely going backwards in computer security.

Might makes right,’ and hoary folly totters on in her mad career escorted by armies and navies.

There’s always your initial trepidation about doing a remake, but that was alleviated by the fact that it was a prequel.

As an actor, often you’re stuck with these scenes in which a great period of time is in between them – for example, if you do a biopic, it might be a year, it might be a decade, you never know.

.superior to any sold for humans..