The greatest advantage in gambling lies in not playing at all.
In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends; While Nature, kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please us.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
I have now lost my barrier between me and death; God grant I may live to be as well prepared for it, as I confidently believe her to have been! If the way to Heaven be through piety, truth, justice and charity, she is there.
Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
We human beings do have some genuine freedom of choice and therefore some effective control over our own destinies. I am not a determinist. But I also believe that the decisive choice is seldom the latest choice in the series. More often than not, it will turn out to be some choice made relatively far back in the past.
If the character has the motivation to dance round trees, then I will dance round trees. If the motivation is strong enough, then I'll fly to the moon.
Strong drink stupefies a man and makes it possible for him to forget; it gives him an artificial cheeriness, an artificial excitement; and the pleasure of this state is increased by the low level of civilization and the narrow empty life to which these men are confined.
I was once a welfare recipient and am very aware of the successes and failures of this critical safety net. There are those that would have us believe that those receiving TANF benefits are lazy, shiftless, freeloaders who are just sitting around thinking of another way to suckle from the government teat.