"Thou water turn'st to wine, fair friend of life; Thy foe, to cross the sweet arts of Thy reign, Distils from thence the tears of wrath and strife, And so turns wine to water back again."

"Life that dares send A challenge to his end, And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend!"

"The modest front of this small floor, Believe me, reader, can say more Than many a braver marble can,— “Here lies a truly honest man!”"

"Most people are robust. If a man puts his hand on a woman's bottom, any woman worth her salt can deal with it. It is communication. Can't we be friendly?"

"I think that there is this idea that what you should go after is fame. That is a hugely mistaken idea because fame means absolutely nothing. This whole culture of wanting to become famous is on a hiding to nothing, a sign of a society that’s lost its way and will only judge people as being valid if they’re famous, which of course is all bullshit. As Tom Stoppard said, the only thing that fame means is that more people know you than you know.”"

"I've never been passionate about acting, and I find more and more that I work to live the life I want to live. An actor like Al Pacino lives to act. I'm not sure though, there's something about the detachment I have, the feeling of the lack of importance about what I do, that is healthy."

"The movie industry is run by accountants in Hollywood and it's as simple as this; everyone has a number on their computer. They can look up Jeremy Irons and see what my last five movies have made. Say you want to make a $20m picture, which is relatively cheap. If Jeremy makes $9m, the director makes $5m, then you need a leading lady, and they just go through those figures - that's how casting happens. And none of my movies has made a lot of money."

"I'm a very difficult person. My wife's a very difficult person. Living together is difficult but all marriages are the same - desperately difficult. … I can't imagine letting a marriage go unless it's intolerable. Every time you get through a difficulty, the bond is stronger. If you're lucky enough to get to a stage where you have been together a long time, your lives are so intertwined. I think being polite and kind to each other is terribly important. That, more than anything, can go a huge way in relationships."

"Uncommon things must be said in common words, if you would have them to be received in less than a century."

"Modern Philosophers, that wisely keep to sandy shallows, like shrimps, for fear of bigger fish."

"The proper study of mankind is woman."

"Life's warp of Heaven and woof of Hell."

"Holy indignation is a proof that we should do the same thing ourselves, and easy tears are a certain sign of a hard heart."

"Nothing remains with man unless it is insinuated with some delight."

"He is irrational, however well he may be able to reason, who does not clearly see that good is good and truth truth."

"The cloud that is light to Israel is darkness to Egypt."

"The enthusiasm for goodness which shows that it is not the habit of the mind."

"The dull and heavy hate of fools."

"As the Word of God is God's image, so the word of man is his image, and "a man is known by his speech.""

"The Catholic Church itself has been nearly killed by the infection of the puritanism of the Reformation."

"Good people and religious are the first to say, "He hath a devil" of any one whose way is widely different from and maybe greatly higher than their own."

"Toleration, as it is now widely preached, may be a very one-sided bargain. It will not do to let falsehood and moral idiocy say to truth and honesty, "I will tolerate you if you will tolerate me.""

"God is the only reality, and we are real only so far as we are in His order, and He is in us."

"Enough's a surfeit to the soul."

"Ninety-nine men in a hundred are natural men, that is, beasts of prey; and it is mere insanity, in business matters, to deal with a stranger upon any other assumption than that he is a natural man, though we should veil our knowledge of the actual fact by a courteous recognition in words and manners of his better possibilities."

"Nothingness is capacity, and night the opportunity of light."

"Creation is nothing but a concerted piece, consisting of representative repetitions and variations of and harmonious commentaries upon the simple theme, God, […] divine contrapuntal music […]. If Beethoven and Bach are but senseless noise to the untrained ears of the boy who likes to hear Balfe on the street organ; you, though you may be capable of Beethoven and Bach, should hesitate to affirm that the sphere-music is not music because to your ears it is nothing but confusion. The first step towards becoming able to hear it is, to fix your attention upon the theme, which is God."

"Man, when he is in health and order of soul and body, is Mount Olympus, and in him, so long as he confesses that he is nothing in himself, are sensibly apparent the powers and majesties, beauties and beatitudes of all Gods and Goddesses."

"The history of creation, regarded by some in very early ages as probably "mythical," has, indeed, been proved to be certainly so, but the myth includes teaching of much more significance to us than the supposed history, and everyone should be glad to discover this additional proof that the aim of the writers of Scripture was not to satisfy an idle curiosity about facts which do not concern us. The doctrine of evolution promises to be of very easy assimilation by the Church."

"A man may read Plato without clearly comprehending much of what he means. He cannot read him without becoming, in some degree, a changed man."

"Every evil is some good spelt backwards, and in it the wise know how to read Wisdom."

"The impurity of ignorance is in none so manifest as in the devout; for they act on their ignorance, and fill themselves and others with miserable scruples and hard thoughts of God, and are as apt to call good evil as other men are to call evil good."

"Woman is the sum and complex of all nature, and is the visible glory of God.[…] The "Word made Flesh" [John 1:14] is the word made Woman."

"One fool will deny more truth in half an hour than a wise man can prove in seven years."

"The ardour chills us which we do not share."

"Books are influential in proportion to their obscurity, provided that the obscurity be that of inexpressible Realities. The Bible is the most obscure book in the world. He must be a great fool who thinks he understands the plainest chapter of it."

"It is one thing to be blind, and another to be in darkness."

"Creation differs from subsistence only as the first leap of a fountain differs from its continuance."

"The modern Agnostic improves upon the ancient by adding "I don't care" to "I don't know"."

"Pride does much and ill, Love does little and well."

"Religion is not religion until it has become, not only natural, but so natural that nothing else seems natural in its presence."

"All reasoning ends in an appeal to self-evidence."

"The midge's wing beats to and fro A thousand times ere one can utter "O!""

"If you try to simplify or pare off the superfluous from the minds and speech of most men, you will find that nothing is left. There is no simplicity in them, for there is no truth; truth and simplicity being, as Aquinas says, the same thing."

"For want of me the world’s course will not fail; When all its work is done the lie shall rot; The truth is great and shall prevail When none cares whether it prevail or not."

"None thrives for long upon the happiest dream."