I try to have no absolute nos. I love french fries, I like a good burger, and I like pie. And that's okay.
See in what peace a Christian can die.
One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.
Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves.
Persons in great stations have seldom their true character drawn till several years after their death. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. When writers have the least opportunities of knowing the truth, they are in the best disposition to tell it.
I have often thought, says Sir Roger, it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the middle of Winter.
When I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow: when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind.
The prison psychiatrist asked me if I thought sex was dirty. I told him only when it's done right.
Do you want power over something? Be more nearly real than it.
Joy all creatures drink At nature's bosoms.
Even if you yourself were unhappy and anxious, whenever you glimpsed happiness in your child, you suddenly became happy too.