As an actor, I think a mistake that any storyteller can make is to play the ending.
In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible ; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another.
Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more easily than their words.
Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them.
Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.
I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.
By nature I am not tough, believe it or not.
You stayed,” he murmured. . . Her softly whispered answer sifted into his hair where her lips rested against the top of his head. “You didn’t let go.
I'm not going around touring the U. S. when I've got nowhere to live.
I believe we will start believing in God as we get closer to death.