The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.

Vice stirs up war, virtue fights.

Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.

You are not born for fame if you don't know the value of time.

When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected.

To possess taste, one must have some soul.

We should expect the best and the worst of mankind, as from the weather.

All grand thoughts come from the heart.

If people did not compliment one another there would be little society.

Everyone is born sincere and die deceivers.

Clarity is the counterbalance of profound thoughts.

The art of pleasing is the art of deception.

There is nothing that fear and hope does not permit men to do.

The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one's opportunities and make the most of one's resources.

Men sometimes feel injured by praise because it assigns a limit to their merit; few people are modest enough not to take offense that one appreciates them.

The law cannot equalize mankind in spite of nature.

You must rouse into people's consciousness their own prudence and strength, if you want to raise their character.

The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success.

The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.

Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.

The idle always have a mind to do something.

Great thoughts always come from the heart.

To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.

One promises much, to avoid giving little.

The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great ambition.

Those who can bear all can dare all.

Wicked people are always surprised to find ability in those that are good.

Emotions have taught mankind to reason.

To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.

It is not true that equality is a law of nature. Nature has no equality. Its sovereign law is subordination and dependence.

Fashion is OK for five days, one minute, six months, but style is for the rest of the life.

I'm a bit of a mummy's boy.

If there's a woman who is exhibiting her femininity or performing her femininity, it's always seen as meant to pull in the male gaze.

Compromise and tolerance are magic words. It took me 40 years to become philosophical.

Cole Porter wrote Anything Goes and four more hits for me.

The name of my ailment was longing, and it was not cured till I finally went to the department store and counted out the money in small coins before the dismayed clerk. When I came to the house, I held up the instrument before the eyes of the astonished household.

No day is so bad it can't be fixed with a nap.

I wear high heels and dresses. I am a total girly girl.

It's refreshing going from getting picked on in middle school to getting my name screamed out across the street.

I find awards frivolous. When I began my career, I was told that I deserved an award for a certain performance, but then I couldn't turn up on the day of the show. Then I was told that the award went to someone else. That's when I realised the truth behind it all.

Writing doesn't come easily to me. It gets more and more difficult.

I love music, so if I wasn't singing, I would probably still be working in the music industry. I love songwriting, so I'd probably be a songwriter.

God intended Earth. God intended the waters. God intended you and me. We were created in the image and the likeness of God; we are holograms, if you will. So the power, the presence, the energy is within you and me. The energy of God, as life, is within each of us.

I'm happiest when I'm moving.

Iran is not in any sort of routine groupings. It's not an Arab country. It's not part of the Indian subcontinent. So it's in a neighborhood where it has some unique characteristics. We are a country which embraced Islam, learned Arabic, but didn't change its language or its culture... That's what keeps us unique.

I love my parents very much, but people either continue or break the patterns of what their life should be and I just want to completely break whatever patterns would lead me to the same life choices that they made.

Purify the mind through selfless service.

By fairy hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is sung.

Celebrity life and media culture are probably the most overbearing pop-cultural conditions that we as young people have to deal with, because it forces us to judge ourselves.