When we can begin to take our failures nonseriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves.
I’m afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.
Fame often makes a person vain, but seldom makes him proud.
Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.
Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.
My fear . . . is my substance, and probably the best part of me.
Those who love to be feared fear to be loved, and they themselves are more afraid than anyone, for whereas other men fear only them, they fear everyone.
He who eats alone chokes alone.
In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.
I can’t forgive my friends for dying; I don’t find these vanishing acts of theirs at all amusing.
A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature.
God gives us our relatives— thank God we can choose our friends.
So long as we are loved by others I should say that we are almost indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.
To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel. . . . Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.
Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.
Every time I hear that word, I cringe. Fun! I think it’s disgusting; it’s just running around. It’s not my idea of pleasure.
