If youcan make a man laugh, you can make him think and make him like and believeyou.

Conflictis the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. Itinstigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheeplikepassivity, and sets us at noting and contriving.

Character is a by-product; it is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.

Don't consideryour reputation and you may do anything you like.

Neverforget the power of silence, that massively disconcerting pause which goes onand on and may at last induce an opponent to babble and backtrack nervously.

A person who talks about his Inferiors han't any.

Books without the knowledge of life are useless.

A merefriend will agree with you, but a real friend will argue.

The flowers of life are but illusions. How many fade away and leave no trace; how few yield any fruit and the fruit itself how rarely does it ripen!

My greenthumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to seethings from the plant's point of view.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

Girls .. . were allowed to play in the house . . . and boys were sent outdoors. . .Boys ran around in the yard with toy guns going kksshh-kksshh,fighting wars for made-up reasons and arguing about whowas dead, while girls stayed inside and played with dol