It is odd how learned persons fail to see that new terms and definitions are apt to mean new doubts and litigation.

So far I go with the Socialists as to think it a pretty general rule that, where monopoly is necessary, it is better in public hands.

Have you ever found any logical reason why mutual promises are sufficient consideration for one another (like the two lean horses of a Calcutta hack who can only just stand together)? I have not.

If you deny that any principles of conduct at all are common to and admitted by all men who try to behave reasonably - well, I don't see how you can have any ethics or any ethical background for law.

Consider the Essay as a political pamphlet on the Revolution side, and the fact that it was the Whig gospel for a century, and you will see its working merit.

The oldest theory of contract is I think negative.

Crabbed and obscure definitions are of no use beyond a narrow circle of students, of whom probably every one has a pet one of his own.

It cannot be assumed that equity was following common law whenever they agreed, any more than the converse.

It is odd how learned persons fail to see that new terms and definitions are apt to mean new doubts and litigation.

I have not heard that even the New York abortion has done very much in the States where it has been enacted.

Medieval justice was a quaint thing.

The practice of the law is a perfectly distinct art.

But it is strange how many rational beings believe the ultimate truths of the universe to be reducible to patterns on a blackboard.

It is strange how little harm bad codes do.

Yet when one suspects that a man knows something about life that one hasn't heard before one is uneasy until one has found out what he has to say.

The lawyer has not reached the height of his vocation who does not find therein... scope for a peculiar but genuine artistic function.

Our lady the Common Law is a very wise old lady though she still has something to learn in telling what she knows.

Not that pleading can be taken as a test, for the forms of action, notably Debt, ignore the fundamental difference between duties imposed by law and duties created by the will of the parties.

A lot of America is kind of done. People have been making films about it for 100 years. Everything to me feels used up. But Jo-Burg feels unbelievably inspirational to me.

I'm not a villain, I've never hurt anyone. I'm just a tawdry character who explodes now and again.

Doubt is the enemy of mania. It's trying to get aloft strung with weights. The moment I like writing is three sentences in, when somehow those weights drop away, and you can invent. I cannot tell you the dread I have.

Organizations can get in the way of innovation, because if people are all bound up, and if they don't know if they get to make the decision or somebody else, and if they do, what happens to them, and so on and so forth.

Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.

I suffer from vertigo. It's paralyzing in extreme situations. The most scared I've been as an adult was trying to conquer that fear by going climbing in Wales.

The songs in 'Wonderland' don't have a melodic life for me - I'm not a musical person - but they have an emotional life, an emotional echo perhaps.

The fact is, my parents loved me, and I wanted to be worthy of their love. I wanted to make them proud.

One of the things about writing fiction is that you create people that you feel, more or less, as though you know.

Olympic champions should be 100 per cent athletes who have made the sacrifices.

I like being innocent, but know now when I am being taken for a ride.

Affirmation literally means to validate or confirm. So when we think a thought over and over again, we are validating or confirming it as the truth.

I like repressed characters. That gives me a lot of freedom to make a lot of different choices through subtleties.

The automobile engine will come, and then I will consider my life's work complete.

That's the place we're in right now: we think we have the capability to get every piece of information, and we don't. We don't know what's going on behind the closed curtain. If we want to say we live in a free democratic society, we should be able to find out whatever we want to.

The fundamental defect with fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

You don't really see too many straight friendships between men and women on 'Mad Men.'

My grandmother taught me how to make the basic pate brise pastry crust when I was young. The one thing I learned simply by eating her endless variations on delicious tarts for dinner every night is that this dough can be used for just about anything - sweet or savory.

With the advent of Twitter and Facebook and other social networking sites, genuine privacy can only be found by renting a private villa for a holiday.

It's hard to stay true to yourself and what you want in life when there are so many distractions and so much craziness going on around you.

Success is often achieved by those who dont know that failure is inevitable.

I'm one of those people who has always struggled with emotions and revealing them. When my dog Orson died, I did this very male thing of 'It's just a dog and I'll just move on.' I was very slow to grasp the emotion. But Orson is the reason I started writing about dogs.

The people are forbidden to give aid and comfort to rebels. What of a government that has the power to cut off from aid and comfort all the rebels of the South and fails to exercise it?

I didn't even know I would be an actor; I always wanted to be a cameraman.