Nothing destroys authority so much as the unequal and untimely interchange of power, pressed too far and relaxed too much.

For aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.

The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on. -King Henry VI. Part III. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Feast of Thomas the Apostle Good when He gives, supremely good; Nor less when He denies: Afflictions, from His sovereign hand, Are blessings in disguise.

You shall not pile, with servile toil, Your monuments upon my breast, Nor yet within the common soil Lay down the wreck of power to rest, Where man can boast that he has trod On him that was "the scourge of God."

Acting, First Rule of: Whatever happens, look as if you intended it to happen.

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

The end of fishing is not angling, but catching.

The highest virtue found in the tropics is chastity, and in the colder regions, temperance.

An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.

Abuse a man unjustly, and you will make friends for him.

Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings.

My appetite comes to me while eating.

I can't stand cheap people. It makes me real mad when someone says something like, "Hey, when are you going to pay me that $100 you owe me?" or "Do you have that $50 you borrowed?" Man, quit being so cheap!

By these things examine thyself. By whose rules am I acting; in whose name; in whose strength; in whose glory? What faith, humility, self-denial, and love of God and to man have there been in all my actions?

Commemoration of John Bosco, Priest, Founder of the Salesian Teaching Order, 1888 "The Bible," we are told sometimes, "gives us such a beautiful picture of what we should be." Nonsense! It gives us no picture at all. It reveals to us a fact: it tells us what we really are; it says, This is the form in which God created you, to which He has restored you; this is the work which the Eternal Son, the God of Truth and Love, is continually carrying on within you.

Hospital rooms seemt to have vastly more ceiling than any rooms people live in.

The sea complains upon a thousand shores.

Any subject is good for opera if the composer feels it so intently he must sing it out.

Skepticism is slow suicide.