To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else -- these are things that confer a pleasure compared with which other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial.

In literature imitations do not imitate.

Tis Better to Sit there and LOOK the fool, than to open your mouth and prove it.

If you can't get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one.

Comparison is the death of joy.

I felt it was my duty to praise all of God's works with fervent enthusiasm. At the same time I killed flies in my house in a spirit of hatred, exasperation and contempt. My praise to God for all his works was dishonest, the act of killing the fly was honest.

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.