I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?

The best prophet of the future is the past.

Self-love for ever creeps out, like a snake, to sting anything which happens to stumble upon it.

Yes! ready money is Aladdin's lamp.

Her great merit is finding out mine; there is nothing so amiable as discernment.

It is useless to tell one not to reason but to believe; you might as well tell a man not to wake but sleep.

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.

Nothing can confound a wise man more than laughter from a dunce.

If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.

Shelley is truth itself and honour itself notwithstanding his out-of-the-way notions about religion.

Women hate everything which strips off the tinsel of sentiment, and they are right, or it would rob them of their weapons.

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.

It is very iniquitous to make me pay my debts, you have no idea of the pain it gives one.

Lovers may be and indeed generally are enemies, but they never can be friends, because there must always be a spice of jealousy and a something of Self in all their speculations.

A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover but will sooner or later find a tyrant.

For what were all these country patriots born? To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn?

I would rather have a nod from an American, than a snuff- box from an emperor.

I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?

The reading or non-reading a book will never keep down a single petticoat.

I slept and dreamt that life was beauty; I woke and found that life was duty.

Every day confirms my opinion on the superiority of a vicious life, and if Virtue is not its own reward, I don't know any other stipend annexed to it.

All farewells should be sudden, when forever.

Romances I ne'er read like those I have seen.

Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away; A single laugh demolished the right arm Of his country.

Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; men love in haste but they detest at leisure.

The fact is that my wife if she had common sense would have more power over me than any other whatsoever, for my heart always alights upon the nearest perch.

What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.

I am sure of nothing so little as my own intentions.

Wives in their husbands' absences grow subtler, And daughters sometimes run off with the butler.

Sincerity may be humble but she cannot be servile.

There is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?

Shakespeare's name, you may depend on it, stands absurdly too high and will go down.

Opinions are made to be changed or how is truth to be got at?

I live not in myself, but I becom Portion of that around me: and to me High mountains are a feelin, but the hum of human cities torture.

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Being a publicist is like management in a lot of ways - you're their friend, you're their mother, you're their confidante.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

We've had it very clear to the Bosnians that our obligation to equip and train their forces is completely conditional on the foreign forces being gone.

My parents were amazing people who had no business being together - and they knew it.