Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.

What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.

But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be - a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.

Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.

It is hardly surprising that women concentrate on the way they look instead of what is in their minds since not much has been put in their minds to begin with.

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of voice, but out of chaos.

It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.

My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free.

A slavish bondage to parents cramps every faculty of the mind.

The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food.

Teach him to think for himself? Oh, my God, teach him rather to think like other people!

Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.

I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print, but as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone, I can hardly accuse myself of a personal intrusion.

And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart.

The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful in society, had that society been well organized.

I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.

My dreams were at once more fantastic and agreeable than my writings.

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.

A king is always a king - and a woman always a woman: his authority and her sex ever stand between them and rational converse.

Elegance is inferior to virtue.

It is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of it's own reason.

The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more.

The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature.

A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study.

A solitary being is by instinct a wanderer.

Roosevelt's magic lay in one facet of his personality: He knew how to take the risk. No other man in public life I knew could so readily take the challenge of the new.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.

If it came to saving the life of one priest or sacrificing the life of an entire congregation, the church would save the life of the priest. Which is backwards, of course.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

You have choices to make about what you do with the rest of your life.

From the standpoint of observation, then, we must regard it as a highly probable hypothesis that the beginnings of the mental life date from as far back as the beginnings of life at large.

I want to have babies one day but not right now. When I do it I want to do it really well. I want it to be my best project in life.

Any judge who allows an adulterer with a live-in girlfriend to terminate the life of his wife should be impeached.

I can assure you, public service is a stimulating, proud and lively enterprise. It is not just a way of life, it is a way to live fully.

The work which is manipulated looks a little boring to me. I think life is pretty strange anyway. It is wooo, wooo, wooo!

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

Sometimes life's so much cooler when you just don't know any better and all the painful lessons have not hammered your head open yet.

My life is so full of surprises, nothing surprises me any more.

I love children and I love men, but I can't commit to either for the rest of my life.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

Yes, I am Algerian of Moroccan origin through my parents, but all my life is Algeria. I was born there.

At one point in your life, you'll have the thing you want or the reasons why you don't.

I tell my students to try early in life to find an unattainable objective.