If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

Society therefore is as ancient as the world.

History should be written as philosophy.

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.

Injustice in the end produces independence.

Common sense is not so common.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.

Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.

When men do not have healthy notions of the Divinity, false ideas supplant them, just as in bad times one uses counterfeit money when there is no good money.

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.

We are rarely proud when we are alone.

Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.

The superfluous, a very necessary thing.

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.

In marriage do thou be wise: prefer the person before money, virtue before beauty, the mind before the body; then thou hast a wife, a friend, a companion, a second self.

Avoid popularity; it has many snares, and no real benefit.

For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.

Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.

Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.

True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

Humility and knowledge in poor clothes excel pride and ignorance in costly attire.

Knowledge is the treasure of a wise man.

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.

Only trust thyself, and another shall not betray thee.

Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.

He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father's wisdom than he who has a great deal left him does to his father's care.

True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.

Patience and Diligence, like faith, remove mountains.

Jack Palance was my distant uncle - that's the family gossip. Growing up, my family knew everything about his face getting burned and scarred in the military and how that mutilation led him to become such a famous 'heavy' in films. I prayed for good scars of my own. Not just acne scars.

Personal identity seems like it's just such an American archetype, from Holly Golightly re-inventing herself in 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' to Jay Gatsby in 'The Great Gatsby.' It seems like the sort of archetypal American issue. If you're given the freedom to be anything, or be anyone, what do you do with it?

Find out what you're afraid of and go live there.

If you flee from the things you fear, there's no resolution.

The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.

Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?

My goal is never to make fun of religion.

Once religion has been dismissed by primarily an intellectual class of people, we lose the really useful social functions of religion... What replaces it might be worse than what we throw away.

Of the big horror movies of the '70s, you have 'The Omen,' 'The Sentinel,' 'Rosemary's Baby,' 'The Stepford Wives,' 'Burnt Offerings' - these are all romantic fatalist movies where there's a sort of glimmer of hope... but darkness wins.