“Our youth and manhood are due to our country, but our declining years are due to ourselves.”

Cats too, with what silent stealthiness, with what light steps do they creep up to a bird!

We neglect those things which are under our very eyes, and heedless of things within our grasp, pursue those which are afar off.

Wine takes away reason, engenders insanity, leads to thousands of crimes, and imposes such an enormous expense on nations.

It [the earth] alone remains immoveable, whilst all things revolve round it.

An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.

Not a day without a line.

In wine there is health.

A short death is the sovereign good hap of human life.

The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.

Man naturally yearns for novelty.

In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.

I would have a man generous to his country, his neighbors, his kindred, his friends, and most of all his poor friends. Not like some who are most lavish with those who are able to give most of them.

Now, that the sovereign power and deity, whatsoever it is, should have regard of mankind, is a toy and vanity worthy to be laughed at.

Human nature is fond of novelty.

I think it is the most beautiful and humane thing in the world, so to mingle gravity with pleasure that the one may not sink into melancholy, nor the other rise up into wantonness.

From the end spring new beginnings.

They’re trying to pay for health care and send their kids to college, they’re worried about declining home values, they’re scared for a loved one they have serving in Iraq.

Since the decline of record companies and music sales, I’ve always played live.

As a result of the awareness and consciousness of decline, an awareness and consciousness of a national ethnicity or an Islamic identity also came into being.

The principal reason for the decline and fall of peoples is ignorance.

What is at a peak is certain to decline. He who shows his hand will surely be defeated. He who can prevail in battle by taking advantage of his enemy’s doubts is invincible.

Not yet is not no. It is still possible that tomorrow will be more precious than yesterday.

If a nation’s literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.

I’ve turned down twentysomething million dollars for movies.