The wise man reads both books and life itself.

Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks.

Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty. Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice.

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.

Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.

Today we are afraid of simple words like goodness and mercy and kindness. We don't believe in the good old words because we don't believe in good old values anymore. And that's why the world is sick.

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.

The wise man reads both books and life itself.

A good traveller is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveller does not know where he came from.

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.

This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.

Peace of mind is that mental condition in which you have accepted the worst.

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his own, familiar pillow.

The more we justify our beliefs the more narrow minded we become.

By association with natures enormities a mans heart may truly grow big also.

The busy man is never wise and the wise man is never busy.

China is the greatest mystifying and stupefying fact in the modern world.

A cocktail party is a place where you talk with a person you do not know about a subject you have no interest in.

The secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what you have and to be able to lose all desire for things beyond your reach.

It is not dirt but the fear of dirt which is the sign of mans degeneration and it is dangerous to judge a mans physical and moral sanity by outside standards.

Of all the rights of women the greatest is to be a mother.

Hope is like a road in the country there was never a road but when many people walk on it the road comes into existence.

Since the invention of the flush toilet and the vacuum carpet cleaner the modern man seems to judge a mans moral standards by his cleanliness and thinks a dog the more highly civilized for having a weekly bath and a winter wrapper round his belly.

A vague uncritical idealism always lends itself to ridicule and too much of it might be a danger to mankind, leading it round in a futile wild-goose chase for imaginary ideals.

It is that unoccupied space which makes a room habitable, as it is our leisure hours which make life endurable.

Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey.

Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother.

Any good practical philosophy must start out with the recognition of our having a body.

There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.

It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library. And if a library have interest it is; if not, it isn't.

I enjoy about 1 out of 100 movies, it's about the same proportion to books published that I care to read.

I was drawn to boxing because I got beat up as a kid. I was the kid with the piano books in a New York neighbourhood.

It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.

The proper study of mankind is books.

I have written about 10 books, all just practical encouragement for moms.

Whites were the winners, blacks were the losers, we wrote the history books, and they didn't feature.

Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.

You could say, in a vulgar Freudian way, that I am the unhappy child who escapes into books. Even as a child, I was most happy being alone. This has not changed.

Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist.

As I have studied the Bible and the Book of Mormon, I have come to know through the power of the Spirit of God, that these books contain the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books.

Then I found books that were written much later, as late as 15 years ago. It was very superficial material, but enough to tell me that the genesis of this story was worth exploring.

To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.

Well, it was actually - I brought the idea of doing a documentary to HBO back in 2000, when there were some press reports sort of were bandied about that there were going to TV movies based on some of the books that were out.

In my subconscious, my books were part of a single emotional journey.

I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun.