Shen-hui

As for the pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs.

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.

Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on The Survival of the Fittest. These are illustrious names, this is a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base, nothing dissolve it, but evolution.

First and foremost, it’s going to be treat others with respect. Be polite: Manners go a long way. Try to come from a good place. And aside from that, stay focused and do the right thing.

Words will not fail when the matter is well considered.

Give no bounties: make equal laws: secure life and prosperity and you need not give alms.

Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to be quite true.

I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.

Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.

Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It’s very important to be aware of them every time they come up.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.

The surest poison is time.