In Which Quotes & Sayings

Yes, our old age is not going to be sunny orchard drowse. By shutting down the fire curtain, though, I find I can live in the moment; which is good; why yield a moment to regret or envy or worry? Why indeed? (24 December 1940) — Virginia Woolf

To relinquish a present good through apprehension of a future evil is in most instances unwise ... from a fear which may afterwards turn out groundless, you lost the good that lay within your grasp. — Francesco Guicciardini

All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life; but among all those which the world has invented there is none more to be feared than the theater. It is a representation of the passions so natural and so delicate that it excites them and gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love. — Blaise Pascal

To image the being of God towards the world, to be the priest of creation, is to behave towards the world in all its aspects, of work, and of play, in such a way that it may come to be what it was created to be, that which praises its maker by becoming perfect in its own way. In all this, there is room for both usefulness and beauty to take their due place, but differently according to differences of activity and object. — Colin Gunton

I can discover nothing in any mere animal but an ingenious machine, to which nature has given senses to wind itself up, and guard, to a certain degree, against everything that might destroy or disorder it. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In the 1970s, I used to buy opals and moonstones at the Queen Victoria Market, which were seen as old-fashioned and too heavy at the time. — Kerry Greenwood

If it were not for the Eucharist, if it were not for this marvelous manifestation of God's love, if it were not for this opportunity to place ourselves in the very real presence of God, if it were not for the sacrament that reminds us of His love, His suffering and His triumph, which indeed perpetuates for us His saving sacrifice on the cross, I am sure that I could never face the challenges of my life, my own weakness and sinfulness and my own need to reach out to the Living God. — Theodore Edgar McCarrick

Another important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy. In the way my body stretches to music and opens into response, hearkening to its deepest rhythms, so every level upon which I sense also opens to the erotically satisfying experience, whether it is dancing, building a bookcase, writing a poem, examining an idea. That self-connection shared is a measure of the joy which I know myself to be capable of feeling, a reminder of my capacity for feeling. And that deep and irreplaceable knowledge of my capacity for joy comes to demand from all of my life that it be lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible, and does not have to be called marriage, nor god, nor an afterlife. — Audre Lorde

Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth. For, of things beyond our power, I believe there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquility except such men. — Baruch Spinoza

People in Parliament occupy themselves with private animosities and petty quarrels, and think little of the national interest. It is impossible to credit the serene indifference with which they consider events outside their own country. — William III Of England

There seems to be no mainframe explanation for the PC world in which we're living. — William J. Clinton

There is a plan for each of us, and each of us is precious. As we open our hearts more and more, we're moved in the directions in which we're supposed to go. — Marianne Williamson

This had been a bad section of town before the Circus moved in and brought in money, which attracted other businesses. The area had been gentrified not because of some government interference, but by good old-fashioned capitalism, which was one of Jean-Claude's favorite things. — Laurell K. Hamilton

It was indeed not very sound. However, those who had taken it, were in a fairer way of recovery than the others at the end of the fortnight, which was the length of time all these different courses were continued, except the oranges. — James Lind

In our world, in which religious images are losing their meaning, in which our customs are getting more and more secular, we are losing our sense of the eternal. I think it's a loss that has done a great deal of damage to modern art. Painting is a return to origins. — Antoni Tapies

Birth, copulation, and death. Fine. In truth, however, there were at least two other things in which Amanda strongly believed. Namely: magic and freedom. — Tom Robbins

There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit. — Alexander Pope

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

It has become a commonplace that aggressiveness also often has its roots in fear. I am inclined to think that this theory has been pushed too far. [ ... ] The type of aggressiveness that is the outcome of timidity is not, I think, that which inspires great leaders; the great leaders, I should say, have an exceptional self-confidence which is not only on the surface, but penetrates deep into the subconscious. — Bertrand Russell

The quality of life in America is dependent on the quality of the journalism. Most people don't realize that, but if you think about it, journalism is one of the pillars on which our society is perched. — Scott Pelley

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. — James Madison

So the researcher's central dilemma exists in an especially acute form in psychology: either the animal is not like us, in which case there is no reason for performing the experiment; or else the animal is like us, in which case we ought not to perform on the animal an experiment that would be considered outrageous if performed on one of us. Another — Peter Singer

Though colour may appear at first a part of painting merely mechanical, yet it still has its rules, and those grounded upon that presiding principle which regulates both the great and the little in the study of a painter. — Joshua Reynolds

The bedlamite little hats in which American women have tried to out-lunatic each other for the past four years prove conclusively we don't dress to please anyone. We're just docile sheep who accept what's given us. — Beatrice Fairfax

How do I transform pain. I guess the number one way in which I do that is by working on music, but also it can be anything from just talking about it with other people or doing kickboxing or meditating or running around with dogs. Or just simply trying to sit with it and be mindful and be aware of it. — Moby

Norms appearing in the form of law entitle actors to exercise their rights or liberties. However, one cannot determine which of these laws are legitimate simply by looking at the form of individual rights. Only by bringing in the discourse principle can one show that each person is owed a right to the greatest possible measure of equal liberties that are mutually compatible. — Jurgen Habermas

After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness. — Baruch Spinoza

An overcrowded world is the ideal place in which to be lonely. — Brian W. Aldiss

A man is crazy who writes a secret in any other way than one which will conceal it from the vulgar. — Roger Bacon

She comes to me when she wants to be fed. And after I feed her
guess what
she's off to wherever she wants to be in the house, until the next time she gets hungry. She's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually a very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it, which is why I say this cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life. — Rush Limbaugh

People are important too, however, and what a terrible impact a total ban on hunting would have on the rural economy, which is still reeling from the after-effects of foot and mouth disease. With average net farm income having fallen to 5,200 per farm in England and 4,100 in Wales, it seems an act of spiteful vandalism to destroy literally thousands of jobs in deeply rural areas, when it is simply not necessary to do so and where no meaningful alternative employment exists. — Ann Winterton

In my prayers every day, which are a combination of Hebrew prayers and Shakespeare and Sondheim lyrics and things people have said to me that I've written down and shoved in my pocket, I also say the name of every person I've ever known who's passed on. — Mandy Patinkin

Reading," he says, "is always this: there is a thing that is there, a thing made of writing, a solid, material object, which cannot be changed, and through this thing we measure ourselves against something else that is not present, something else that belongs to the immaterial, invisible world, because it can only be thought, imagined, or because it was once and is no longer, past, lost, unattainable, in the land of the dead. . . . — Italo Calvino

In certain circumstances, financial markets can affect the so-called fundamentals which they are supposed to reflect. When that happens, markets enter into a state of dynamic disequilibrium and behave quite differently from what would be considered normal by the theory of efficient markets. Such boom/bust sequences do not arise very often, but when they do, they can be very disruptive, exactly because they affect the fundamentals of the economy. — George Soros

The invisibility in which we live next to one another is appalling, Kukla thought. — Dubravka Ugresic

Preparatory faith is formed by experiences in the past-by the known, which provides a basis for belief. But redemptive faith must often be exercised toward experiences in the future-the unknown, which provides an opportunity for the miraculous. — Jeffrey R. Holland

Most humans know their own "reason" only in the sense that Hume defined it, as "a slave to the passions"-and by "passions" he meant not moral passions or the passions of transcendent genius, but only low appetites or base desires, which society and economy ultimately shape and spur on in us. — Kenny Smith

Beyond all the fires of love through which one passes there is the star of Duty, and happy the individual who can live in its serenity. — William John Locke

The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death — Edgar Allan Poe

You are only as powerful as that for which you stand. Do you stand for more money in the bank and a bigger house? Do you stand for an attractive mate? Do you stand for imposing your way of thinking upon others? These are the stands of the personality seeking to satisfy its wants. Do you stand for perfection, for the beauty and compassion of each soul? Do you stand for forgiveness and humbleness? These are the stands of the personality that has aligned itself with its soul. This is the position of a truly powerful Personality. — Gary Zukav

it doesn't matter how old you are, how old your child was when he or she died, or the particular manner of your child's death; the hole in your heart never heals over. You can function in life, but you are doomed to fall far short of that contentment which had once been available to you. Soon — David Bagby

...the whole of American life was organized around the cult of the powerful individual, that phantom ideal which Europe herself had only begun to outgrow in her last phase. Those Americans who wholly failed to realize this ideal, who remained at the bottom of the social ladder, either consoled themselves with hopes for the future, or stole symbolical satisfaction by identifying themselves with some popular star, or gloated upon their American citizenship, and applauded the arrogant foreign policy of their government. — Olaf Stapledon

When we encounter unexpected obstacles in finding out something which we wish to know, there are two possible courses to take. It may be that the right course is to treat the obstacle as a spur to further efforts; but there is a second possibility - that we have been trying to find something which does not exist. You will remember that that was how the relativity theory accounted for the apparent concealment of our velocity through the aether. — Arthur Stanley Eddington

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. — Karl Marx

The close observer soon discovers that the teacher's task is not to implant facts but to place the subject to be learned in front of the learner and, through sympathy, emotion, imagination, and patience, to awaken in the learner the restless drive for answers and insights which enlarge the personal life and give it meaning. — Nathan M. Pusey

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. — James Madison

Science itself is a humanist in the sense that it doesn't discriminate between human beings, but it is also morally neutral. It is no better or worse than the ethos with and for which it is used. — Max Lerner

Literature is the voice of the age and the state; the character, energy, and resources of the country are reflected and imaged forth in the conceptions of its great minds; they are organs of the time; they speak not their own language, they scarce think their own thoughts; but under an impulse like the prophetic enthusiasm of old, they must feel and utter the sentiments which society inspires. — Edward Everett

One day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand. Then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas! it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one. — Charles Darwin

To a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form in which God can dare appear is work and promise of food as wages. — Mahatma Gandhi

In his ... 'Geometrical peculiarities of the Pyramids', Ballard shows the relationship between the equal area theory and the golden number. After checking Herodotus' statement via dimensions Ballard concludes: 'I have therefore the authority of Herodotus to support the theory which I shall subsequently set forth, that this pyramid was the exponent of lines divided in mean and extreme ratio. — Roger Herz-Fischler

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. [ ... ] There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves.[ ... ]The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. — C.S. Lewis

Lacking strength beauty hates the understanding for asking of her what it cannot do but the life of spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself. It is this power, not as something positive, which closes its eyes to the negative as when we say of something that it is nothing or is false, and then having done with it, turn away and pass on to something else; on the contrary, spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

You may depend upon it, religion is, in its essence, the most gentlemanly thing in the world. It will alone gentilize, if unmixed with cant; and I know nothing else that will, alone. Certainly not the army, which is thought to be the grand embellisher of manners. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Warren Berger's book is a cure for a disease in large enterprises. A More Beautiful Question provides a framework to help leaders ask the most important questions - which is one of the most fundamental characteristics of a great leader - while sharing inspiring stories to show the incredible power of this concept. — Jim Stengel

The social damage was not in the failure but in the undertaking, which was expensive. The cost of war was the poison running through the 14th century. — Barbara Tuchman

Leadership is a mindset in which one is unapologetically driven towards their goals and in behaving accordingly, inspires those around them to join in. — Steve Maraboli

to know that an inference is deductively valid is to know that there are no situations in which the premisses are true and the conclusion is not. — Graham Priest

When we focus on winning the battle for material gains,we end up losing spiritual war.If we had a better self of ethics we would be better prepared to deal with the complicated world in which we find ourselves. — David V. Gaggin

Maybe there are just some men like that in the world, I thought. Men who have to be in charge, who have to punish those who awaken feelings in them which they cannot control. Men who will lure you with tenderness till you believe that you are safe then slap you down. Men whom it is impossible for anyone to love without losing their dignity. Men who have to damage those who love them most. But, then, I had fallen on love with one, so what did that make me? — Helen Fielding

Before entering into any kind of intimate relationships, whether friendship, familial re-connection, or romance, the idea of "needing" or "being needed" must be eliminated. It's harmful to me and others. Need is no kind of foundation for anything. Rather, I choose to be wanted. "Want" is a deliberate choice. Wanting is not based in fear or ego (which are one in the same, I believe). Want comes from recognition of someone else's goodness and loving them for it. Being wanted is unconditional. It does not require emotional games be played, it does not require reparations be made or obligations be met. Being wanted is good, in and of itself. — Jennifer DeLucy

But having said all of that, that still doesn't account for a lot of the increase in popularity which stems, I think, from Lincoln's personal characteristics. — David Herbert Donald

The true Christian is like sandalwood, which imparts its fragrance to the axe which cuts it, without doing any harm in return. — Sadhu Sundar Singh

The ignorant mass looks upon the man who makes a violent protest against our social and economic iniquities as upon a wild beast, a cruel, heartless monster, whose joy it is to destroy life and bathe in blood; or at best, as upon an irresponsible lunatic. Yet nothing is further from the truth. As a matter of fact, those who have studied the character and personality of these men, or who have come in close contact with them, are agreed that it is their super-sensitiveness to the wrong and injustice surrounding them which compels them to pay the toll of our social crimes. The most noted writers and poets, discussing the psychology of political offenders, have paid them the highest tribute. Could anyone assume that these men had advised violence, or even approved of the acts? Certainly not. Theirs was the attitude of the social student, of the man who knows that beyond every violent act there is a vital cause. — Emma Goldman

The result of feeling that we are separate minds in an alien,
and mostly stupid, universe is that we have no common sense, no way of making sense of the world upon which we are agreed in common. It's just my opinion against yours, and therefore the most aggressive and violent (and thus insensitive) propagandist makes the decisions. A muddle of conflicting opinions united by force of propaganda — Alan W. Watts

Immigrants can spread diseases for which we may have no immunity. There is also the question of crime and culture. Many immigrants come from countries with different legal structures and are not willing to behave in the way we expect American citizens to behave. — Ron Paul

Books never cease to astonish me. When I was a child, I knew
in the incontestable way that children know things
that God was an author who'd imagined me, which is why I (and everyone else) existed: to populate His narrative. My task was to imagine God in return: this was all He and I owed each other. — Martha Cooley

I wish to see, in process of disappearing, that only thing which ever could bring this nation to civil war. — Abraham Lincoln

The Senate has unlimited debate; in the House, debate is ruthlessly circumscribed. There is frequent discussion as to which technique most effectively frustrates democratic process. — John Kenneth Galbraith

I pray that this council, which will probably be too late to save Iraq, will do what it can, which will be immeasurably strong in what it does in trying to save our democracy. — Ed Asner

A catalyst is a substance which alters the velocity of a chemical reaction without appearing in the final products. — Wolfgang Ostwald

But I see no reason why a woman should not grow and develop in all those outlets which are suited to her nature, it matters not at all what they may be. — Agnes Smedley

Te is thus the natural miracle of one who seems born to be wise and humane, comparable to what we call "perfect specimens" of flowers, trees, or butterflies - though sometimes our notions of the perfect specimen are too formal. Thus Chuang-tzu enlarges on the extraordinary virtue of being a hunchback, and goes on to suggest that being weird in mind may be even more advantageous than being weird in body. He compares the hunchback to a vast tree which has grown to a great old age by virtue of being useless for human purposes because its leaves are inedible and its branches twisted and pithy.5 Formally healthy and upright humans are conscripted as soldiers, and straight and strong trees are cut down for lumber; wherefore the sage gets by with a perfect appearance of imperfection, such as we see in the gnarled pines and craggy hills of Chinese painting. — Alan W. Watts

In 1986, I read a remarkable article by Israel Rosenfield in The New York Review of Books in which he discussed the revolutionary work and views of Gerald M. Edelman. Edelman was nothing if not bold. We are at the beginning of — Oliver Sacks

From the 1980s onward, manufacturers of products advertised as uniquely healthy because they were low in fat or specifically in saturated fat (not to mention "gluten free, no MSG & 0g trans fat per serving") took to replacing those fat calories with sugar to make them equally, if not more, palatable, and often disguising the sugar under one or more of the fifty-plus names by which the fructose-glucose combination of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup might be found. Fat — Gary Taubes

In front of us there is an immense garden of words and non-words, a serre, that is, a greenhouse in which are preserved by my care so many things of speech you have given me while leaving me free to cultivate them. — Helene Cixous

Like grain in a time of famine, the immense resources which the nation does in fact possess go not to the child in the greatest need but to the children of the highest bidder-the child of parents who, more frequently than not, have also enjoyed the same abundance when they were schoolchildren. — Jonathan Kozol

The sorrow of war inside a soldier's heart was in a strange way similar to the sorrow of love. It was a kind of nostalgia, like the immense sadness of a world at dusk. It was a daness, a missing, a pain which could send one soaring back into the past. The sorrow of the battlefield could not normally be pinpointed to one particular event, or even one person. If you focused on any one event it would soon become a tearing pain. — Bao Ninh

God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because 'God' is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, 'God' is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself. Each of us projects our limited experience on a cosmic screen in letters as big as our minds can fashion. For those whose vision is constricted (illiberal, narrow-minded people), this can have horrific consequences. But others respond to the munificence of creation with broad imagination and sympathy. Answering to the highest and best within and beyond themselves, they draw lessons and fathom meaning so redemptive that surely it touches the divine. — Forrest Church

There is another peculiar satisfaction in really hearing someone: It is like listening to the music of the spheres, because beyond the immediate message of the person, no matter what that might be, there is the universal. Hidden in all of the personal communications which I really hear there seem to be orderly psychological laws, aspects of the same order we find in the universe as a whole. So there is both the satisfaction of hearing this person and also the satisfaction of feeling one's self in touch with what is universally true. — Carl Rogers

Why should the illiterate man have this power, which the learned man has not? The illiterate one, through faith in Christ, has come into the atmosphere of pure, clear truth, while the learned man has turned away from the truth. — Ellen G. White

I asked for help, which is the hardest thing in the world. — Marcia Wallace

Look at your life. Look at the ways in which you define who you are and what you're capable of achieving. Look at your goals. Look at the pressures applied by the people around you and the culture in which you were raised. Look again. And again. Keep looking until you realize, within your own experience, that you're so much more than who you believe you are. Keep looking until you discover the wondrous heart, the marvelous mind, that is the very basis of your being. — Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Thomas Jefferson had rather serious concerns about the fate of the democratic experiment.28 He feared the rise of a new form of absolutism that was more ominous than the British rule overthrown in the American Revolution. He distinguished in his later years between what he called "aristocrats and democrats."29 And then he went on to say, "I hope we shall ... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial and bid defiance to the laws of our country."30 He also wrote, "I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."31 That's the kind of quote from a Founding Father you don't see too much. — Noam Chomsky

If you try to avoid every instance of peer pressure you will end up without any peers whatsoever, and the trick is to succumb to enough pressure that you do not drive your peers away, but not so much that you end up in a situation in which you are dead or otherwise uncomfortable. This is a difficult trick, and most people never master it, and end up dead or uncomfortable at least once during their lives. — Lemony Snicket

Given that we desire long life, should we not take eternal life into account? If we long for a kingdom which, however enduring, has an end, and glory and joy which, great as they are, will fade, and wealth that will perish with this present life, and we labour for the sake of such things; ought we not to seek the kingdom, glory, joy and riches which, as well as being all-surpassing, are unfading and endless, and ought we not to endure a little constraint in order to inherit it? — Gregory Palamas

There is no point in being realistic about here and now, no use at all not any, and so it is not the nineteenth but the twentieth century, there is no realism now, life is not real it is not earnest, it is strange which is an entirely different matter. — Gertrude Stein

The search for truth is, as it always has been, the noblest expression of the human spirit. Man's insatiable desire for knowledge about himself, about his environment and the forces by which he is surrounded, gives life its meaning and purpose, and clothes it with final dignity ... And yet we know, deep in our hearts, that knowledge is not enough ... Unless we can anchor our knowledge to moral purposes, the ultimate result will be dust and ashes- dust and ashes that will bury the hopes and monuments of men beyond recovery. — Raymond B. Fosdick

The disappointments of life can never, any more than its pleasures, be estimated singly; and the healthiest and most agreeable of men is exposed to that coincidence of various vexations, each heightening the effect of the other, which may produce in him something corresponding to the spontaneous and externally unaccountable moodiness of the morbid and disagreeable. — George Eliot

What use to me are your nature, your Pavlovsk Park, your sunrises and sunsets, your blue sky and your all-satisfied faces, when the whole of this feast, which has no end, began by considering me alone superfluous? What is there for me in all this beauty, when at each minute, each second, I'm now compelled to be aware that even this tiny housefly buzzing around me in the sunbeam now, even it is a participant in all this feast and chorus, knows its place, loves it and is happy, while I alone am an outcast, — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

FAIR river! in thy bright, clear flow Of crystal, wandering water, Thou art an emblem of the glow Of beauty - the unhidden heart - The playful maziness of art In old Alberto's daughter; But when within thy wave she looks - Which glistens then, and trembles - Why, then, the prettiest of brooks Her worshipper resembles; For in his heart, as in thy stream, Her image deeply lies - His heart which trembles at the beam Of her soul-searching eyes. — Edgar Allan Poe

If you are ambitious of climbing up to the difficult, and in a manner inaccessible, summit of the Temple of Fame, your surest way is to leave on one hand the narrow path of Poetry, and follow the narrower track of Knight-Errantry, which in a trice may raise you to an imperial throne. — Miguel De Cervantes

My worrying, for instance, was a scene in which I looked at myself while I had the sensation of being boxed in. I call that worrying, It has happened to me a number of times after that first time. — Carlos Castaneda

Be strong and of good courage; for you shall cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, to observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded you: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. 8 This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it: for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success. 9 Have not I commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; Do not be terrified, neither be dismayed: for Yahweh your Elohim is with you wherever you go. — Elder Jacob O Meyer

sound of it. Everything was more echoey here, including the falls, which were somewhere off to the side. In front of them, in the camera's light, Carter could see the edge of a pond or a pool of some kind. It was impossible to know how big it was, but it was feeding the stream they'd followed inside. — Jeff Probst

...Americans didn't stick to cities, which makes us different from the people in other industrialized countries. We no sooner arrived in town, turning those towns into great mid-century metropolises, than we decided to take off for the green world beyond, so that by the 1970 Census, we had become the first suburban nation in the history of the world. And Detroit led the way, with a population curve up and down just like everywhere else, but with its urban decline a lot steeper over the past sixty years - so typical a place that it only looks like an exception. — Jerry Herron

Moved on ... " he said. "Rusted nuts! You can do that?"
"Certainly."
"Huh. You think ... I should ... you know ... Ranette ... "
"Wayne, if ever someone should have taken a hint, it was you. Yes. Move on. Really."
"Oh, I took the hint," he said, taking a swig of sherry. "Just can't remember which jacket I left it in." He looked down at the jug. "You sure?"
"She has a girlfriend, Wayne."
"'S only a phase," he mumbled. "One what lasted fifteen years. ... — Brandon Sanderson

My first job in all honesty is going to continue to be mom-in-chief. Making sure that in this transition, which will be even more of a transition for the girls ... that they are settled and that they know they will continue to be the center of our universe. — Michelle Obama

I had a library of maybe 1,000 books in my room in Buenos Aires. I did have the sense that everything there was organised in the right way. You'll probably think I needed serious psychiatric treatment, but there were times when I would not buy a book because I knew it wouldn't fit one of the categories into which I had divided the library. — Alberto Manguel

I'm very fond of the concept of choice as the basis for sexual preference. This point of view is unpopular in an era in which every claim for gay rights is bases on pseudoscientific sulking about how we can't help being queer; we're just born that way. Thanks, but I don't want to receive my civil rights as a charity fuck bequeathed on me by my genetic superiors. — Patrick Califia-Rice