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.

If you're not hopeful and optimistic, then you just give up. You have to take the long hard look and just believe that if you're consistent, you will succeed.

Our lives are structured by our memories of events. Event X happened just before the big Paris vacation. I was doing Y in the first summer after I learned to drive. Z happened the weekend after I landed my first job. We remember events by positioning them in time relative to other events.

How you approach birth is intimately connected with how you approach life.

The interest of the landlord is always opposed to the interests of every other class in the community.

I've always embraced failure as a noble pursuit. It allows you to be anti whatever anyone wants you to be, and to break all the rules.

Cover the canvas at the first go, then work at it until you see nothing more to add.

I really love music, and I definitely love playing music and getting to be a part of music.

I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better.

I don't really dance. I don't drink or smoke. Being at parties is very awkward.

I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.

A house that does not have one worn, comfy chair in it is soulless.

I like to see how other people work and be part of their stuff and see what I can do to be part of their worlds. Its a pretty big challenge, and that excites me.

I can't live without eyeliner.

I grew up with an extremely funny dad, and my mom is super funny.

I have learned to have more faith in the scientist than he does in himself.

We must begin to shift the emphasis of teen-age pregnancy to teen-age boys.

The moment that changed me for ever was when I had my first seminar with my history professor at the University of Sussex. I realised that history would answer all the questions I had spent my life asking. It was an extraordinary moment.

Da was a real fisherman. But it wasn't the catch that mattered, it was the skill of the cast, the preparation of the flies. I often think my inability to prepare, my desire to get going, are a direct result of watching my father making all those painstaking preparations before he cast his line.

You wake up in the morning and you look at your old spoon, and you say to yourself, 'Mick, it's time to get yourself a new spoon.' And you do.

I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

When I got to 'Saturday Night Live,' it was a lot like going from pre-school to Harvard, and it took a long time to figure stuff out.

Art for Duchamp, all the arts, obey the same law: meta-irony is inherent in their very spirit. It is an irony that destroys its own negation and, hence, returns in the affirmative.

In a storm there is no shelter like the wings of God.

I just sought a way to be someone I wasn't. To be loved.