Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck by the difference between what things are and what they might have been.

I woke at intervals until . . . the intervals of waking tipped the scales, and I was more often awake than not.

Joy has this in common with pain, that it robs people of reason.

Life is not having been told that the man has just waxed the floor.

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

The inspiration of the almighty gives man understanding.

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

And striving to be Man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form.

It is the nature of slavery to render its victims so abject that at last, fearing to be free, they multiply their own chains. You can liberate a freeman, but you cannot liberate a slave.

It requires more courage to suffer than to die.

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.

For there is no respect of persons with God.

The worst of me is known, and I can say that I am better than the reputation I bear.

The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.

He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise.

The natural inclination of a child is to take pleasure in the use of the mind no less than of the body. The child's primary business is learning. It is also the primary entertainment. To retain that orientation into adulthood, so that consciousness is not a burden but a joy, is the mark of the successfully developed human being.

Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can.

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.

Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have.

Ah, well, the truth is always one thing, but in a way it's the other thing, the gossip, that counts. It shows where people's hearts lie.