We should be more anxious that our afflictions should benefit us than that they should be speedily removed from us.

A friend should be one in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and its sincerity.

In matters of conscience, first thoughts are best. In matters of prudence, last thoughts are best.

Mankind are apt to be strongly prejudiced in favor of whatever is countenanced by antiquity, enforced by authority, and recommended by custom.

Call things by their right names - Glass of brandy and water! That is the current, but not the appropriate name; ask for a glass of liquid fire and distilled damnation.

Of all the species of literary composition, perhaps biography is the most delightful. The attention concentrated on one individual gives a unity to the materials of which it is composed, which is wanting in general history.

In the power of fixing the attention lies the most precious of the intellectual habits.

We are to seek wisdom and understanding only in the length of days.

We should be more anxious that our afflictions should benefit us than that they should be speedily removed from us.

Rising health care spending occurs because it is beneficial, not a burden on the economy.

Call things by their right names Glass of brandy and water That is the current but not the appropriate name ask for a glass of liquid fire and distilled damnation.

Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day, which must be done, whether you like it or not.

We all accept the visual shorthand used throughout comics: if something's farther away, it'll be drawn with a thinner, simpler line, eventually leaving out most visual information and becoming a gesture, a skeletal representation of a thing.

We have to remind people how important arts are. People just don't see it.

We have taken the manatees out of the areas in the Caribbean and really elsewhere in the world, and this disruption to the system makes such systems vulnerable to changes as they come by, whether it's in terms of disease or terms or global warming for that matter.

When I was 16, I really discovered good stuff like Detroit techno or gabba from Holland.

Language is not merely a set of unrelated sounds, clauses, rules, and meanings; it is a total coherent system of these integrating with each other, and with behavior, context, universe of discourse, and observer perspective.

When you've paid your debt to society, you need to be reconnected and re-engaged in society.

Forward ever, backward never.

Why, so soon as French Canadians, who are in a minority in this House and in the country, were to organise as a political party, they would compel the majority to organise as a political party, and the result must be disastrous to themselves.

Remember that mindsets can not be changed through force and coercion. No idea can ever be forcibly thrust upon any one.

Courage, dear heart.

If someone does not care about losing you, then move on. There are many people out there that would die if it meant losing you.

When you're working in a collaborative storytelling medium, every step of the way, you're opening yourself up.

A woman with organizing skills can run a construction company without ever picking up a hammer and nail.

Any debut novel is usually a case of spitting into the wind - or, just maybe, casting your bread upon the waters. Without an established audience in place, first-time authors have to hope for resonant word of mouth and a receptive reviewer or three.

I really love the sound of my dog snoring.

I was in the Square at the time. The crowd was a most good-humoured, easy going, smiling crowd; but presently it was transformed. A regiment of mounted police came cantering up.

Only children are weird. The only children I know, including myself, are either superweird or very talented and special or a mix of the two. I think there was always a certain independence and loneliness - I had a lot of imaginary friends as a kid.

Never compete with your master because that is disrespect to him You are your only rival you compete with yourself go beyond yourself

I'm not an extremist, you know.

What I've discovered and really confirmed to myself is that opera really likes loud colours, and you need something bold, something savage, unpredictable, passionate. You can't really run a two-hour opera round some muted murmuring.

Those who make happiness the chief objective of life are bound to fail, for happiness is a by-product rather than an end in itself.

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

I've never seen service as separate from my spiritual practice or my spiritual teaching.