“To the composition of novels and romances, nothing is necessary but paper, pens, and ink, with the manual capacity of using them.”

Good writers will, indeed, do well to imitate the ingenious traveller, who always proportions his stay in any place.

There is scarcely any man, how much soever he may despise the character of a flatterer, but will condescend in the meanest manner to flatter himself.

Life may as properly be called an art as any other.

Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others have done evil.

A rich man without charity is a rogue; and perhaps it would be no difficult matter to prove that he is also a fool.

There is nothing so useful to man in general, nor so beneficial to particular societies and individuals, as trade. This is that alma mater, at whose plentiful breast all mankind are nourished.

Success is a fruit of slow growth.

Now in reality, the world has paid too great a compliment to critics, and has imagined them to be men of much greater profundity than they really are.

A beau is everything of a woman but the sex, and nothing of a man beside it.

Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it, a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.

Never trust the man who has reason to suspect that you know he hath injured you.

What is commonly called love, namely the desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human flesh.

LOVE: A word properly applied to our delight in particular kinds of food; sometimes metaphorically spoken of the favorite objects of all our appetites.

The highest friendship must always lead us to the highest pleasure.

The greatest part of mankind labor under one delirium or another; and Don Quixote differed from the rest, not in madness, but the species of it. The covetous, the prodigal, the superstitious, the libertine, and the coffee-house politician, are all Quixotes in their several ways.

A man may go to heaven with half the pains it cost him to purchase hell.

Honesty, capacity, and industry are nowhere more indispensable than in public employment.

People differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition. Such inequality is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals or to the community.

I always knew I’d be in music in some sort of capacity. I didn’t know if I’d be successful at it, but I knew I’d be doing something in it. Maybe get a job in a record store. Maybe even play in a band. I never got into this to be a star.

And once you’re unafraid with death, I think your capacity for violence is immediately increased. Once you’re unafraid of death, you are a very, very dangerous adversary.

My dad’s a lighting director. Growing up in Hollywood, I was around the entertainment industry all the time. I knew I’d end up in show business in some capacity, eventually.

So long as we believe in our heart of hearts that our capacity is limited and we grow anxious and unhappy, we are lacking in faith. One who truly trusts in God has no right to be anxious about anything.

Healing is a different type of pain. It’s the pain of becoming aware of the power of one’s strength and weakness, of one’s capacity to love or do damage to oneself and to others, and of how the most challenging person to control in life is ultimately yourself.

I knew I’d end up in show business in some capacity, eventually.