Great New Years Quotes & Sayings

Honestly, not being evasive, but the great thing about Bond is that I have fifty years of movies - 23 movies and all the Ian Fleming novels and short stories, all of which are fodder. And when I'm working on the new Bond, I'm constantly going back to Fleming and the other movies - what are the bits and pieces, what are the resonances? — John Logan

OLD GRIZZLY ADAMS. [37-*] James C. Adams, or "Grizzly Adams," as he was generally termed, from the fact of his having captured so many grizzly bears, and encountered such fearful perils by his unexampled daring, was an extraordinary character. For many years a hunter and trapper in the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains, he acquired a recklessness which, added to his natural invincible courage, rendered him truly one of the most striking men of the age. He was emphatically what the English call a man of "pluck." In 1860, he arrived in New York with his famous collection of California animals, captured by himself, consisting of twenty or thirty immense grizzly bears, at the head of which stood "Old Sampson" - now in the American Museum - wolves, half a dozen other species of bear, California lions, tigers, buffalo, elk, etc., and Old Neptune, the great sea-lion, from the Pacific. — P.T. Barnum

It's something we do every week. Every week kind of has bigger name headliners. It's all just our taste. There's a lot of people like Ian Edwards or Dan Mintz who a lot of people haven't heard of yet, but we know are really great. When we started the show five years ago it wasn't because Patton Oswalt needs another place to play. It was because we had a lot of new friends like BJ Novak or Morgan Murphy, who didn't have any club to play. — B. J. Porter

Obviously we're celebrating a 36-year legacy on ABC and the end of an era, but we're also celebrating the start of a new era with this great property on ESPN. It's a bit of mixed emotions. — George Bodenheimer

I never liked hearing anyone say I was the new George Gershwin, because I knew I could have never even carried that man's music case. If George Gershwin hadn't died when he was thirty-nine years old, there is no knowing how much more great music he would have written. — Burt Bacharach

All right," Malcolm said. "Let's go back to the beginning." He paused, staring at the ceiling. "Physics has had great success at describing certain kinds of behavior: planets in orbit, spacecraft going to the moon, pendulums and springs and rolling balls, that sort of thing. The regular movement of objects. These are described by what are called linear equations, and mathematicians can solve those equations easily. We've been doing it for hundreds of years." "Okay," Gennaro said. "But there is another kind of behavior, which physics handles badly. For example, anything to do with turbulence. Water coming out of a spout. Air moving over an airplane wing. Weather. Blood flowing through the heart. Turbulent events are described by nonlinear equations. They're hard to solve - in fact, they're usually impossible to solve. So physics has never understood this whole class of events. Until about ten years ago. The new theory that describes them is called chaos theory. — Michael Crichton

Mrs Bennet was a great connoissuer of feminine beauty and indeed it must be owned that she herself was a very handsome woman. As to the sweetness of her temper, there was less compelling evidence; yet in all her forty years she had given none of her family or general acquaintance reason to suppose her a murderess. — Debbie Cowens

For many years, I tried to make New Year's resolutions. I made lists and shot for great heights: I would show altruism and exert moral strength, patience and all those other great attributes. — Henry Rollins

I live in New York, but I am always delighted to come to Europe because I am European and grew up here until I was 20. I am not only Italian, I am partly Swedish. When my parents divorced, I was three years old and went to live in Paris ... when I am offered a film in Europe, I come with great enthusiasm! — Isabella Rossellini

It was in New York, and I've always wanted to film in New York. And the writer was a teenage friend of mine. We did youth theatre together when we were 16 and always had a dream of making a film together. And ten years later, we've done it. So it's great. — Rosamund Pike

What Kinds of Circumstances Called for Courage in Paton's Life? He had courage to overcome the criticism he received from respected elders for going to the New Hebrides. A Mr. Dickson exploded, "The cannibals! You will be eaten by cannibals!" The memory of Williams and Harris on Erromanga was only 19 years old. But to this Paton responded: Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer (56). — Anonymous

It's worth pointing out that [Herman Melville] worked in [the New York Custom House] as a deputy customs inspector between 1866 and 1885. Nineteen years, and he never got a raise - four dollars a day, six days a week. He was by then a washed-up writer, forgotten and poor. I used to find this subject heartbreaking, a waste: the greatest living American author was forced to spend his days writing tariff reports instead of novels. But now, knowing what I know about the sleaze of the New York Custom House, and the honorable if bitter decency with which Melville did his job, I have come to regard literature's loss as the republic's gain. Great writers are a dime a dozen in New York. But an honest customs inspector in the Gilded Age? Unheard of. — Sarah Vowell

And yet, over the years I've met so many people like Jared who seem to be more at home, happier, living in a country on of their birth ... Not political refugees, escaping a repressing regime, nor economic refugees, crossing a border in search of a better-paying job. The are hedonic refugees, moving to a new land, a new culture, because they are happier there. Usually hedonic refugees have an ephiphany, a moment of great clarity when they realize, beyond a doubt, that they were born in the wrong country. — Eric Weiner

Twelve years ago me and Allanah became really sick of writing pop songs, ... Eventually we dug a grave for the Thompson Twins, pushed them in there, and then moved to New Zealand. Before that I'd lived for a long time in south London where reggae was the music of the streets around me. You'd hear it booming out of people's windows and shops, and you could buy great old reggae singles for 50p (NZ1.30) in second hand shops. I'd always loved that sound, so soon after we got here I started making electronic dub records with my mate Rakai Karaitiana as International Observer. — Tom Bailey

One-hundred-ten years of history, great diversity, lots of new earnings drivers and I just became a grandpa - twins. And I'm buying JJ, Pfizer and Warner for their future college funds. — David O. Sacks

....[T]he night terrors were no match for the glory of waking up to a new day in the Land of Israel. In every conscious moment, Yael was aware that she was living through times that would form the legends and myths of future generations. Just as her generation told and retold the story of the Exodus from Egypt - the event that changed the nature of Israel forever - so would her people hundreds of years from now tell of the end of the Great Exile and the return to this land. The wonder of it touched everything around her, casting a golden glow over even the most mundane events. Nothing seemed impossible, and nothing seemed entirely real. — Yael Shahar

And two years ago this morning I woke wondering what delightful gift the new day would give me. These are the two years I thought would be filled with fun."
"Would you exchange them - now - for two years filled with fun "
"No " said Rilla slowly. "I wouldn't. It's strange - isn't it - They have been two terrible years - and yet I have a queer feeling of thankfulness for them - as if they had brought me something very precious in all their pain. I wouldn't want to go back and be the girl I was two years ago not even if I could. Not that I think I've made any wonderful progress - but I'm not quite the selfish frivolous little doll I was then. I suppose I had a soul then Miss Oliver - but I didn't know it. I know it now - and that is worth a great deal - worth all the suffering of the past few years. — L.M. Montgomery

But it's also the beginning of another level of liberation for her]Eleanor Roosevelt], because when she returns to New York, she gets very involved in a new level of politics. She meets Esther Lape and Elizabeth Read, and becomes very involved in the women's movement, and then in the peace movement. And ironically, the years of her greatest despair become also the years of her great liberation. — Blanche Wiesen Cook

Some three or four years before this Dr. Sloper had moved his household gods up town, as they say in New York. He had been living ever since his marriage in an edifice of red brick, with granite copings and an enormous fanlight over the door, standing in a street within five minutes' walk of the City Hall, which saw its best days (from the social point of view) about 1820. After this, the tide of fashion began to set steadily northward, as, indeed, in New York, thanks to the narrow channel in which it flows, it is obliged to do, and the great hum of traffic rolled farther to the right and left of Broadway. — Henry James

I like to work on New Year's Eve. It has a nice spirit; a nice feel about it. If you are all about the 'year-end' thing at all, then laughing with fellow human beings is a great way to start the new year. — Paula Poundstone

As the astronomer rejoices in new knowledge which compels him to give up the dignity of our globe as the centre, the pride, and even the final cause of the universe, so do those who have escaped from the Christian mythology enjoy their release from the superstition which fails to make them happy, fails to make them good, fails to make them wise, and has become as great an obstacle in the way of progress as the prior mythologies which it took the place of two thousand years ago. — Harriet Martineau

In The Great Stagnation, Cowen bemoaned the lack of big technological advances and argued that the American economy has slowed and wages have been depressed as a result. "In a figurative sense, the American economy has enjoyed lots of low-hanging fruit since at least the seventeenth century, whether it be free land, lots of immigrant labor, or powerful new technologies," he wrote. "Yet during the last forty years, that low-hanging fruit started disappearing, and we started pretending it was still there. We have failed to recognize that we are at a technological plateau and the trees are more bare than we would like to think. That's it. That is what has gone wrong." In — Ashlee Vance

One day, The road came. The road brought with it beer and cigarettes. The road brought Coca-Cola and disposable razors. The road brought all the wonderful things that we westerners know and hold close. But where did the road go? A few of the younger men decided to find out. They rode a buffalo cart along the road until they came to a town and then a train station. They hid in a bunch of rice sacks and took the train to the city, to the lights, to the jobs. There was this thing called money, with it you could buy stuff. You could gamble, drink, and be merry. After a period of two years, one of the young men returned to the village driving a new car. He showed the villagers all the beautiful things that he had bought. He said that there was work for everyone in the cities. He took another young man and two young women with him. They were pretty in a rural way and very hungry for money. Money was good. They liked it. It was a great adventure. — James A. Newman

A great thing is happening on cable TV. You see characters change in stories over years, like in Tolstoy. That's a whole, thrilling new form that I really enjoy. They are Tolstoy-an in their endless character development and narrative changes ... a show like 'Breaking Bad' is astonishing. — Mike Nichols

Fifty years ago, great schools like the University of California and the City University of New York - as well as many state colleges - were tuition free. Today college is unaffordable for many working class families. For the sake of our economy and millions of Americans, we must make higher education more affordable. — Bernie Sanders

F the government is going to put money into the automobile sector, it should break up GM and Chrysler as a condition of financial aid, and it should be even-handed in its treatment of start-up firms like Tesla, Miles, Fisker, and others. It would be terrible to kill the entrepreneurs who have taken great risks to bring new automotive technologies to market by pumping tax dollars into the behemoths that have done everything wrong for the last years. — Denis Hayes

I really struggled moving from New Zealand to the United States. I still have very strong ties to my home, and it took me a couple of years to feel settled in Los Angeles. Fortunately, I have a great group of friends and found the places where I enjoy spending my time. Finding beaches to get to made me feel much more plugged into the environment here. — Rose McIver

Over the last ten years, technological advances have dramatically lowered the financial bar for starting a new company, but the courage bar for building a great company remains as high as it has ever been. — Ben Horowitz

HANNAH: You had a vision.
PRIOR: A vision. Thank you, Maria Ouspenskaya. I'm not so far gone I can be assuaged by pity and lies.
HANNAH: I don't have pity. It's just not something I have.
(Little pause)
One hundred and seventy years ago, which is recent, an angel of God appeared to Joseph Smith in upstate
New York, not far from here. People have visions.
PRIOR: But that's preposterous, that's ...
HANNAH: It's not polite to call other people's beliefs preposterous.
He had great need of understanding. Our Prophet. His desire made prayer. His prayer made an angel. The angel was real. I believe that.
PRIOR: I don't. And I'm sorry but it's repellent to me. So much of what you believe.
HANNAH: What do I believe?
PRIOR: I'm a homosexual. With AIDS. I can just imagine what you ...
HANNAH: No you can't. Imagine. The things in my head.
You don't make assumptions about me, mister; I won't make them about you. — Tony Kushner

A great man, Luigi Chinetti. Clever and smart and resourceful. He died in 1994 at the age of ninety-three years. I often wonder who he is now, who possesses his soul. Does a child know his own spiritual background, his own pedigree? I doubt it. But somewhere, a child surprises himself with his endurance, his quick mind, his dextrous hands. Somewhere a child accomplishes with ease that which usually takes great effort. And this child, who has been found to his past but whose heart still beats for the thrill of the race, this child's soul awakens.
And a new champion walks among us. — Garth Stein

Living in New York City is one constant, ongoing literary pilgrimage. For 20 years, I lived among the ghosts of great writers and walked where they had walked. — Kate Christensen

My parents used to throw great New Year's Eve parties. They invited such an eclectic mix of showbiz people. All those cool people were always hanging out at our apartment. — Ben Stiller

There are ways I made sense of my mother later. How fifteen years with my father had left great blanks in her life that she was learning to fill, like those stroke victims relearning the words for car and table and pencil. The shy way she looked for herself in the oracle of the mirror, as critical and hopeful as an adolescent. Sucking in her stomach to zip her new jeans. — Emma Cline

It's great that New York has large spaces for art. But the enormous immaculate box has become a dated, even oppressive place. Many of these spaces were designed for sprawling installations, large paintings, and the Relational Aesthetics work of the past fifteen years. — Jerry Saltz

Years ago, when I was working on my master's thesis, I went to New York for a semester as an exchange student. What struck me most was the sky. On that side of the world, so far away from the North Pole, the sky is flat and gray, a one-dimensional universe. Here, the sky is arched, and there's almost no pollution. In spring and fall the sky is dark blue or violet, and sunsets last for hours. The sun turns into a dim orange ball that transforms clouds into silver-rimmed red and violet towers. In winter, twenty-four hours a day, uncountable stars outline the vaulted ceiling of the great cathedral we live in. Finnish skies are the reason I believe in God. — James Thompson

That's such a great thing about New York, after growing up in a place and being there for twenty plus years, there's still a whole island to discover. — Steven Strait

Few societies have come to grips with the new demography. We cling to the notion of retirement at sixty-five - a reasonable notion when those over sixty-five were a tiny percentage of the population but increasingly untenable as they approach 20 percent. People are putting aside less in savings for old age now than they have at any time since the Great Depression. More than half of the very old now live without a spouse and we have fewer children than ever before, yet we give virtually no thought to how we will live out our later years alone. — Atul Gawande

I go all the way back to the Hot Boys days and being 13, listening to this dude. Just remembering the staple he put on the game back then all the way to now, to have that longevity years beyond it. So for him to actually acknowledge what I'm doing right now and seeing it as a path, the same way the longevity he created, it's a great feeling to actually share that same stage and a moment with him. Wayne ain't no new jack to this game. He influenced a lot of styles and a lot of sounds. I would say I was influenced by a recent sound and flow, and cadence that he brung to the game. — Kanye West

I am weary of this notion of faithfulness to a point of view at all cost. Life around us is ever changing, and I believe that one should try to change one's slant accordingly - at least once every ten years. The great heroic devotion to one point of view is very alien to me - it's a lack of humility. Mayakovsky killed himself because his pride would not be reconciled with something new happening within himself - or around him. — Boris Pasternak

He reasoned, even as a young man, that traditions may linger as he walked though the oracles of time. In later years he thought his mind may one day blur, should he survive to an old age, but as he spread ink on paper, transmitted and shared with those who came after him his experiences, his own grHe reasoned, even as a young man, that traditions may linger as he walked though the oracles of time. In later years he thought his mind may one day blur, should he survive to an old age, but as he spread ink on paper, transmitted and shared with those who came after him his experiences, his own great adventures, he believed perhaps they, like he, would give way to pause to reflect on how...hard it always was to open his eyes to begin a new day. eat adventures, he believed perhaps they, like he, would give way to pause to reflect on how goddamned hard it always was to open his eyes to begin a new day. — Andrew Coster

Kalkbrenner has made me an offer; that I should study with him for three years, and he will make something really - really out of me. I answered that I know how much I lack; but that I cannot exploit him, and three years is too much. But he has convinced me that I can play admirably when I am in the mood, and badly when I am not; a thing which never happens to him. After close examination he told me that I have no school; that I am on an excellent road, but can slip off the track. That after his death, or when he finally stops playing, there will be no representative of the great piano-forte school. That even if I wish it, I cannot build up a new school without knowing the old one; in a word : that I am not a perfected machine, and that this hampers the flow of my thoughts. That I have a mark in composition; that it would be a pity not to become what I have the promise of being ... — Frederic Chopin

Many years ago I resolved never to bother with New Year's resolutions, and I've stuck with it ever since. — Dave Beard

Fashion is merely the lowest form of ideology. To wear or not to wear blue jeans, to holiday or not to holiday in a particular place can contribute to social acceptance or bring upon us the full opprobrium of the group. Then, a few months or years later, we look back and our obsession, our fears of ridicule, seem a bit silly. By then, we are undoubtedly caught up in new fashions.
(I - The Great Leap Backwards) — John Ralston Saul

My favourite piece of architecture is the Royal Conservatory of Music on Bloor (273 Bloor Street West). When they cleaned up the old building a few years back, the stonework just knocked me out. It is a great melding of the Old Toronto and the new. — Andy Barrie

Many merry Christmases, many happy New Years. Unbroken friendships, great accumulations of cheerful recollections and affections on earth, and heaven for us all. — Charles Dickens

People ask me 'Why you want to do another magazine - 10 years at 'Vogue,' a great magazine? Why do you want to make a new one? It's so difficult and there's already so many.' I wanted to do something new, bring a new vision. — Carine Roitfeld

The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. — Adolf Hitler

At certain periods of life, we live years of emotion in a few weeks, and look back on those times as on great gaps between the old life and the new. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The great fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change. [People] won't be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things And in the months ahead, the years ahead, it's only going to get worse. [The NSA will] say that because of the crisis, the dangers that we face in the world, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority, we need more power, and there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it. And it will be turnkey tyranny. — Edward Snowden

Great deal of stress is placed on the importance of humour in the modern relationship. Everything will be all right, we are led to believe, as long as you can make each other laugh, rendering a successful marriage as, in effect, fifty years of improv. To someone who felt in need of fresh new material, as I did during that long, dehydrated night of the soul, this was a cause for concern. I had always enjoyed making Connie laugh, it was satisfying and reassuring because laughter, I suppose, — David Nicholls

When I became the manager of the New York Yankees, it was an opportunity to realize my lifelong dream of winning the World Series. We were fortunate enough to succeed in our first season in 1996, and in the years that followed, we wrote some great new chapters in Yankee history. — Joe Torre

After I got divorced, I said to myself, I will never, ever get married again. It was in cement. I went through a really rough twenty-five years, but it happened again. I fell in love. I told her, Baby, I don't want a prenuptial agreement. This is it. Everyone told me I was nuts. Well, my new wife and I are married six years and we get along great. You can make anything work if you're both givers. — Rodney Dangerfield

The people of Baltimore are great. I love Baltimore. What I looked forward to, every year, was getting a new apartment in a different part of town and hanging out. People started to see you in the character that you were, so everyone thought I was real police. — Wendell Pierce

One day I was handed a few volumes of new literature unlike anything I had ever read before and so captivating as to make me utterly forget my hopeless state. They were the earlier works of Mark Twain and to them might have been due the miraculous recovery which followed. Twenty-five years later, when I met Mr. Clemens and we formed a friendship between us, I told him of the experience and was amazed to see that great man of laughter burst into tears. — Nikola Tesla

Still, despite all this, traveling is the great true love of my life. I have always felt, ever since I was sixteen years old and first went to Russia with my saved-up babysitting money, that to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice. I am loyal and constant in my love for travel, as I have not always been loyal and constant in my other loves. I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless, newborn baby
I just don't care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it's mine. Because it looks exactly like me. It can barf all over me if it wants to
I just don't care. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. — Alfred The Great

When I moved out of London 13 years ago, I found a whole other reason not to drive. This was because my new husband Dan, unlike my dad, did drive, and this became a great source of fun and adventure. — Julie Burchill

A great trick that I learned having worked as a screenwriter for many years, the way screenwriters work, is they break the project down into three-act structure: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3. I think that is a great way to break down any project, whether it's a new business or anything at all. — Steven Pressfield

With the average tenure of sales directors being three years, it's not too great a stretch to conclude that they spend their first 12 months finding out what's broken, the next 12 months papering over the cracks, and the final 12 months shopping their CV for a new job. — Nicholas A.C. Read

Every 10 years you're a different person, and the really great books evolve with you as you get older. They're full of new rewards. — Martin Amis

But it was all a pipe dream. As well try to stop an avalanche as to stop the moving frontier. American immigrants and emigrants wanted their share of land - free land - a farm in the family - the dream of European peasants for hundreds of years - the New World's great gift to the old. Moving west with the tide were the hucksters, the lawyers, merchants, and other men on the make looking for the main chance, men who could manufacture a land warrant in the wink of an eye. This — Stephen E. Ambrose

I wish I had met [Francesca] Woodman forty years ago. It would have been great to live with her for a year. She didn't save anything. She played the camera like a new guitar. She murdered herself out taking pictures ... — Richard Prince

Nearly every writer writes a book with a great amount of attention and intention and hopes and dreams. And it's important to take that effort seriously and to recognize that a book may have taken ten years of a writer's life, that the writer has put heart and soul into it. And it behooves us, as book-review-editors, to treat those books with the care and attention they deserve, and to give the writer that respect."
Pamela Paul, New York Times Book Review editor, in a Poets & Writer's interview
(something for all reviewers to think about) — Madeline Sharples

One of the great weaknesses of the women's rights movement over the past two hundred years has been the tendency of its history to disappear, so that it must be resurrected for each new generation. — Susan Jacoby

My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so many years I have walked almost every day, and sometimes for several days together, I have not yet exhausted them. An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours' walking will carry me to as strange a country as I ever expect to see. — Henry David Thoreau

Like all other self-respecting peoples, we have no intention of paying our debts. Or, to be more nearly accurate, the capitalists who expect to exploit us " for all time and eternity " have no intention of permitting us to pay our debts. They trump up new schemes to cause us to go more deeply into their debt. They intoxicate us with the strong fumes of "world power." They tell us how fine a thing it is to be reckoned among the great nations of the world. They cause us to maintain great military establishments and to build more and greater dreadnoughts. Thirty years ago we spent almost nothing on the navy and little more on the army. Now we are spending $300,000,000 a year on the army and navy. Almost a million dollars every week-day. Sixty-five cents of every dollar that is raised by the American government by taxation is spent for wars past or to come - for pensions, battleships or soldiers. — Anonymous

Several years ago, I realized that I didn't want to spend all my life in medicine. It had me in a sort of spiritual box, like a plant whose roots are getting crowded. I felt I wasn't growing. So I promised myself that I would quit while I still had the energy to get involved in something new. There's nothing wrong with medicine. There's more paperwork, more lawsuits, less understanding between doctors and patients. But it's still a great business. But not for me - not any longer. — Richard S. Weeder

Many years from now when your children ask what New York City was like just after 9/11, this will be the book you give them in response. It's an exquisite novel full of heart, soul, passion and intelligence, and it's the one this great New York author was born to write. — Lee Child

Vietnam is still, as it was thirty years ago, a poor country of rice paddy farms and sandy harbors, where fishermen cast nets from boats with eyes painted on the bows. It is overcrowded, prey to floods and sweatshops, dotted by modern cities and tiny hamlets of thatched huts with TV antennae. It is not a great capital of industry, or an international oil field or bread basket. There is nothing in Vietnam, now, that America truly needs. And there was even less thirty years ago. This country, these people, posed no real threat to us. It was a strange place to send our youth - not to learn a new culture or to enjoy the beaches, but to kill and be killed, to be maimed and to patch up the maimed. I am convinced that, to our government, Vietnam really, truly Didn't Mean Nothing. — Susan O'Neill

In running over the pages of our history for seven hundred years, we shall scarcely find a single great event which has not promoted equality of condition. The Crusades and the English wars decimated the nobles and divided their possessions: the municipal corporations introduced democratic liberty into the bosom of feudal monarchy; the invention of fire-arms equalized the vassal and the noble on the field of battle; the art of printing opened the same resources to the minds of all classes; the post-office brought knowledge alike to the door of the cottage and to the gate of the palace; and Protestantism proclaimed that all men are alike able to find the road to heaven. The discovery of America opened a thousand new paths to fortune, and led obscure adventurers to wealth and power. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Those were the people who made her something, and without them she was different. She'd held on to them and to that old self tenaciously, though. She clung to it, celebrated it, worshipped it even, instead of constructing a new grown-up life for herself. For years she'd been eating the cold crumbs left over from a great feast, living on them as though they could last her forever. — Ann Brashares

My dream is to leave this business on my own terms, and if it were my terms, I would love to do the Royal Rumble. I would love to do Wrestle Mania in New Orleans, because I had so many matches there over the years working for Mid-South. I was in the ring with Muhammad Ali in the Superdome. To close it there would be great. — Jake Roberts

Doubtless a great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity. — George Eliot

In this new year, may you have a deep understanding of your true value and worth, an absolute faith in your unlimited potential, peace of mind in the midst of uncertainty, the confidence to let go when you need to, acceptance to replace your resistance, gratitude to open your heart, the strength to meet your challenges, great love to replace your fear, forgiveness and compassion for those who offend you, clear sight to see your best and true path, hope to dispel obscurity, the conviction to make your dreams come true, meaningful and rewarding synchronicities, dear friends who truly know and love you, a childlike trust in the benevolence of the universe, the humility to remain teachable, the wisdom to fully embrace your life exactly as it is, the understanding that every soul has its own course to follow, the discernment to recognize your own unique inner voice of truth, and the courage to learn to be still. — Janet Rebhan

The one thing that I think separates Microsoft from a lot of other people is we make bold bets. We're persistent about them, but we make them. A lot of people won't make a bold bet. A bold bet doesn't assure you of winning, but if you make no bold bets you can't continue to succeed. Our industry doesn't allow you to rest on your laurels forever. I mean, you can milk any great idea. Any idea that turns out to be truly great can be harvested for tens of years. On the other hand, if you want to continue to be great, you've got to bet on new things, big, bold bets. — Steve Ballmer

In later years, it was common, and I was guilty in this respect, to question the motives of those who joined the new British armies at the outbreak of the Great War, but it must, in their honour and fairness to their memories, be said that they were motivated by the highest purpose, and died in their tens of thousands in Flanders and Gallipoli, believing that they were giving their lives in the cause of human liberty everywhere, including Ireland. — Sean Lemass

The first element in a symmetrical life is work. Three-fourths of our time is probably spent in work. Of course the meaning of it is that our work should be just as religious as our worship, and unless we can work for the glory of God three-fourths of life remains unsanctified. The proof that work is religious is that most of Christ's life was spent in work. During a large part of the first thirty years of His life He worked with the hammer and the plane, making ploughs and yokes and household furniture. Christ's public ministry occupied only about two and a half years of His earthly life; the great bulk of His time was simply spent in doing common everyday tasks, and ever since then work has had a new meaning. — Henry Drummond

The early gigs were pretty panicky - and great, sweaty fun. We were brand new to most people, and they were willing to take anything brand new, for the first time in years. — Andy Partridge

I lived at the Gramercy Park Hotel for about 10 years. It was terrific. It was a pleasantly run-down hotel of the '70s and '80s with a mix of older, rent-controlled apartment dwellers, Europeans and new wave and punk bands. The room service was great, the hamburger was terrific, and they had a doctor who made house calls. — Paul Shaffer

While the West had lulled itself to sleep with the comforting doctrine of man's achievements, a great revolution had been in progress in Russia. The hammer pounded and the sickle gleaned until a new social order called Communism emerged as one of the most powerful ideologies of all time. It challenged every concept man had ever held. It threatened the life of the whole world. It became the greatest challenge Christianity had faced in 2,000 years. It was a fanatic religion that asked questions and demanded answers. — Billy Graham

Within the next few years-a decade perhaps-we should be in a position to unlock new knowledge about life and matter so great that wholly new concepts of human life will follow in the wake of this new knowledge. — David Lilienthal

Great artists come and go; they are born and they die; but there is one exception who has been living for thousands of years and still continues creating new works, new beauties every year: The Autumn! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

New Year, the season for changes in positions and advances in salaries, approaches. If you have in your employ some who deserve more salary, do not compel them to go through the unpleasant ordeal of asking a raise, but, rather, voluntarily increase their remuneration. A raise that comes from the boss without asking is worth a lot more than one that has to be gouged out of him. Is it not true that a great many employers who would not dream of overcharging their customers have no qualms whatever about underpaying their employees if the latter will submit without protest? — B.C. Forbes

I heartily wish you, in the plain home-spun style, a great number of happy new years, well employed in forming both your mind andyour manners, to be useful and agreeable to yourself, your country, and your friends. — Lord Chesterfield

We are drifting into some ugly parallels here, and if I'd written this kind of thing two years ago I'd pick up the New York Times and see myself mangled all over the Op-Ed page... And then beaten into a bloody coma the next evening by some hired thugs in an alley behind the National Press Building..... — Hunter S. Thompson

All institutions have lapses, even great ones, especially by individual rogue employees - famously in recent years at 'The Washington Post,' 'The New York Times,' and the three original TV networks. — Carl Bernstein

It was a matter of not seeing the woods for the trees. Glorious songs have been in Ireland forever, but a lot of these were so popular they were sung only by drunken men at weddings. They didn't have any regard for the song at all. So, I picked out 14 songs that I had grown up with, songs with great melodies. After 35 years as a songwriter, I appreciate the value of a good melody because I know how hard it is to write one. So I presented them in a new way, with piano, keyboards, strings, and a contemporary rhythm section. I just treated the melody with a bit of dignity and a bit of style. — Phil Coulter

Don't ever let anyone tell you that history doesn't repeat. For 70 years, liberals have been spinning the yarn that FDR's New Deal, despite all the evidence that it exacerbated and prolonged the Great Depression, quickened our economic recovery. Indeed, I remember scratching my head when one of my college history professors in the 1970s tried to convince us of that theory and its corollary - an even better howler - that FDR was actually a conservative, because if he hadn't implemented his socialist programs, the republic would have died right there. — David Limbaugh

the Occupy Movement flared up and began setting up tents in public parks all around the nation, from New York City to Chicago to Seattle. But it actually happened exactly eighty years earlier, when the nation was drowning in President Hoover's Great Depression, and not President Bush's Great Recession. These settlements weren't called "occupations" at the time, they were called "Hoovervilles. — Thom Hartmann

[On Brave New World] "Mr. Huxley has been born too late. Seventy years ago, the great powers of his mind would have been anchored to some mighty certitude, or to some equally mighty scientific denial of a certitude. Today he searches heaven and earth for a Commandment, but searches in vain: and the lack of it reduces him, metaphorically speaking, to a man standing beside a midden, shuddering and holding his nose. — L.A.G. Strong

Here is need for a person to be generally educated. Otherwise you shrivel up much too soon. Whether this means reading the bible (I read the New Testament every few years) or reading the great 19th century novelists (the greatest and shrewdest judge of people and of society who ever lived), or classical philosophy (which I cannot read-it puts me to sleep immediately), or history (which is secondary). What matters is that the knowledge worker, by the time he or she reaches middle age, has developed and nourished a human being rather than a tax accountant or a hydraulic engineer. — Peter Drucker

Historians are wont to name technological advances as the great milestones of culture, among them the development of the plow, the discovery of smelting and metalworking, the invention of the clock, printing press, steam power, electric engine, lightbulb, semiconductor, and computer. But possibly even more transforming than any of these was the recognition by Greek philosophers and their intellectual descendants that human beings could examine, comprehend, and eventually even guide or control their own thought process, emotions, and resulting behavior.
With that realization we became something new and different on earth: the only animal that, by examining its own cerebration and behavior, could alter them. This, surely, was a giant step in evolution. Although we are physically little different from the people of three thousand years ago, we are culturally a different species. We are the psychologizing animal. — Morton Hunt

Over the past seventy years the various identity struggles have to some degree remediated the great wrongs that have been done to workers, people of color, Indigenous Peoples, women, gays and lesbians, and the disabled, while helping to humanize our society overall. But they have also had a shadow side in the sense that they have encouraged us to think of ourselves more as determined than as self-determining, more as victims of 'isms' (racism, sexism, capitalism, ableism) than as human beings who have the power of choice. For our own survival we must assume individual and collective responsibility for creating a new nation - one that is loved rather than feared and one that does not have to bribe and bully other nations to win support. — Grace Lee Boggs

We didn't, after all, sing "Another One Bites The Dust" as the coffin was carried out; Hazel and the vicar had settled instead on the more traditional "How Great Thou Art". And Aunty Rose's old adversary the mayor was pressed into service as a coffin bearer to replace Matt.
Rose Adele Thornton, born in Bath, England, died in Waimanu, New Zealand, a mere fifty-three years later. Adept and compassionate nurse, fervent advocate of animal welfare, champion of correct diction and tireless crusader against the misuse of apostrophes. Experimental chef, peerless aunt, brave sufferer and true friend. She had the grace and courage to thoroughly enjoy a life which denied her everything she most wanted. The bravest woman I ever knew. — Danielle Hawkins

I did not come from an academic background. My father was a smart man, but he had a fifth-grade education. He and all his friends were plumbers. They were all born around 1905 in great poverty in New York City and had to go to work when they were 12 or 13 years old. — Leonard Susskind

As the trial opened, most of London had thoughts of little else. The king was often otherwise engaged; he was spending increasing amounts of time with his new mistress, the very beautiful and willing Barbara Villiers, with whom he was totally infatuated. It was said that their relationship 'did so disorder him that often he was not master of himself nor capable of minding business, which in so critical a time, required great application'.3 Hyde, a fastidious man, found Charles's philandering a considerable irritation. He was also infuriated by the king's general lack of attention to matters of state; but Charles's inattentiveness and apparent laziness were traits developed over long years of exile and futility and were to prove fixed within his character. — Don Jordan

The great danger of the new media is that it seems to relish the superficial. There has been an ethos within the Church for many years to pursue an accommodationist strategy in regards to the culture, and this has resulted in a public presentation of the Faith that is often nebulous or "dumbed down." — Robert Barron

I have to say I am a 'Strictly' fan, which is why I am in it. I've always watched it for years. I am not an 'X Factor' fan, and I just think it is a different show. One is about learning something new and having a great time, and the other is rather desperate. — Felicity Kendal

I think it's one thing if you are turning out dozens or even a hundred stories a year, you've got to have a great supporting cast behind you. Superman had a family that developed, and it's only natural that Batman has a family of sorts that developed. I think it's a great way to keep the comics interesting and varied, to appeal to different segments of an audience, to bring new perspectives to it. — Michael Uslan

And I wound up in New Orleans for all those years and it was a great place, really a catalyst creatively. — Jimmy Buffett