“One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they need no answer.”

Socrates said, our only knowledge was “To know that nothing could be known;” a pleasant Science enough, which levels to an ass Each Man of Wisdom, future, past, or present.

Who falls from all he knows of bliss, Cares little into what abyss.

Hatred is the madness of the heart.

Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.

Truth is a gem that is found at a great depth; whilst on the surface of the world all things are weighed by the false scale of custom.

The poor dog, in life the firmest friend. The first to welcome, foremost to defend.

The art of angling, the cruelest, the coldest and the stupidest of pretended sports.

There is no instinct like that of the heart.

Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.

I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law.

There are four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.

Newton, (that Proverb of the Mind,) alas! Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent, That he himself felt only “like a youth Picking up shells by the great Ocean-Truth.”

I have not loved the world, nor the world me.

There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.

I awoke one day to find myself famous.

O thou beautiful And unimaginable ether! and Ye multiplying masses of increased And still increasing lights! what are ye? what Is this blue wilderness of interminable Air, where ye roll along, as I have seen

I want people to come away from my book with questions. Questions about virtue and goodness. Not answers.

You smell good, too, said patchit’s called a shower. I was staring straight ahead. When he didn’t answer, i turned sideways. Soap. Shampoo. Hot water.Naked. I know the drill.

If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.

Each must find out for himself, and must accept the responsibility that his answer prescribes. If he succeeds he will continue to grow in spite of all indignities.

At most, I may write when I am disturbed by something. I have recently discovered the pleasure of finding written answers to written questions.

Nora: i have questions. Patch: i should have known you’ve only been keeping me around for answers. Nora: well, that and your kisses. Anyone ever tell you you’re an incredible kisser?

There are no right answers to wrong questions.

I can’t answer either question. But the look she gives me reminds me of the look in the attack dog’s eyes in the aptitude test – a vicious, predatory stare. She wants to rip me to pieces. I can’t lie down in submission now. I have become an attack dog too.