“As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?”

“We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.”

“what is the work of one man, in a rude state of society, being generally that of several in an improved one.”

“When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often be so generous and so noble?”

“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.”

“How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys is not so much the utility, as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to promote it. All their pockets are stuffed with little conveniences. They contrive new pockets, unknown in the clothes of other people, in order to carry a greater number. They walk about loaded with a multitude of baubles, in weight and sometimes in value not inferior to an ordinary Jew's-box, some of which may sometimes be of some little use, but all of which might at all times be very well spared, and of which the whole utility is certainly not worth the fatigue of bearing the burden.”

“What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.”

“How good a society does human nature permit? How good a human nature does society permit?”

“The question of desirable grief and pain or the necessity for it must also be faced. [Are] growth and self-fulfillment possible at all without pain and grief and sorrow and turmoil? If grief and pain are sometimes necessary for growth of the person, then we must learn not to protect people from them automatically as if they were always bad. Not allowing people to go through their pain, and protecting them from it, may turn out to be a kind of overprotection, which in turn implies a certain lack of respect for the integrity and the intrinsic nature and the future development of the individual.”

"You have to say, 'Well, why did it succeed where others did not?'"

"Tell me how can one live without daughters."

"Where can I free myself of the homeland in my body?"

The various religions are like different roads converging on the same point. What difference does it make if we follow different routes, provided we arrive at the same destination?

What barrier is there that love cannot break?

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?

A lot of black guys always ask me, 'Did Larry Bird really play that good?' I said, 'Larry Bird is so good it's frightening.'

JUDGE: Are you trying to show contempt for this court? MAE WEST: I was doin' my best to hide it.

Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Look your best - who said love is blind?

Every man I meet wants to protect me. I can't figure out what from.

In the blink of an eye everything can change! Why waste time?‪

We all fall to the floor at some point. It's how you pick yourself up that's the real challenge. Isn't it?

And frankly, I don't understand - I mean, I'm obviously a card-carrying Democrat - but I can't understand why any woman would want to vote for Mitt Romney, except maybe Mrs. Romney.

I am often asked if, when I was secretary, I had problems with foreign men. That is not who I had problems with, because I arrived in a very large plane that said United States of America. I had more problems with the men in our own government.