The easiest way for me to lose interests is to know too much of what I want to say before I begin.

We all have two childhoods, the unhappy one and the happy one.

Unless a man has trained himself for his chance, the chance will only make him ridiculous.

Strive for excellence in your calling, but as a subsidiary to this: Do not fail to enrich your whole capital as man. To be a giant, and not a dwarf in your profession, you must always be growing. The man that has ceased to go up intellectually has begun to go down.

Intercourse is after all man's best teacher. "Know thyself" is an excellent maxim; but even self-knowledge cannot be perfected in closets and cloisters--nor amid lake scenery, and on the sunny side of the mountains. Men who seldom mix with their fellow-creatures are almost sure to be one-sided--the victims of fixed ideas, that sometimes lead to insanity.

The power of music that poetry lacks is the ability to persuade without argument.

Criminals are opportunists. If you've got a booming market, they're going to get away with more fraud.