Mine To Possess Quotes & Sayings

I wanted to possess all the books I had already read, as well as all those I had not - every book in the whole wide world, in other words. — Andy Miller

Let me make a solemn pledge before all of you, before the whole world and before God, that I will devote all my energy and all I possess in my power to serve the people of Nigeria and humanity. — Olusegun Obasanjo

I possess the greatest power ever bestowed upon mankind, the power of choice. — Andy Andrews

Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings. Like many millions of people, I am a bastard child of history. Perhaps we all are, black and brown and white, leaking into one another, as a character of mine once said, like flavours [sic] when you cook — Salman Rushdie

Before he left Rome, Marcus had been in a fair way to becoming a charioteer, in Cradoc's sense of the word, and now desire woke in him, not to possess this team, for he was not one of those who much be able to say "Mine" before they can truly enjoy a thing, but to have them out and harnessed; to feel the vibrating chariot floor under him, and the spread reins quick with life in his hands, and these lovely, fiery little creatures in the traces, his will and theirs at one. — Rosemary Sutcliff

All that I say is, examine, inquire. Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against. Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you. — Frances Wright

I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return. — Frank Church

I believed even then that if I could transform my experience into poetry I would give it the value and dignity it did not begin to possess on its own. I thought too that if I could write about it I could come to understand it; I believed that if I could understand my life - or at least the part my work played in it - I could embrace it with some degree of joy, an element conspicuously missing from my life. — Philip Levine

All of history is a malleable instrument in my hands. Ohhh, I have accumulated all of these pasts and I possess every fact - yet the facts are mine to use as I will and, even using them truthfully, I change them. — Frank Herbert

What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds. — David Mitchell

Ethan, this is my favorite moment, before all of my other favorite moments are created with a new client. You are my work of art, mine to possess, sculpt, mend, bend, and make beg for mercy. You will adore worshiping, pleasing and serving me." ~ Mistress — Ruby Madden

As our president bears no resemblance to a king so we shall see the Senate has no similitude to nobles. First, not being hereditary, their collective knowledge, wisdom, and virtue are not precarious. For by these qualities alone are they to obtain their offices, and they will have none of the peculiar qualities and vices of those men who possess power merely because their father held it before them. — Tench Coxe

O my Charlotte, the sacred, tender remembrance! Gracious Heaven! restore to me the happy moment of our first acquaintance.
I smile at the suggestions of my heart, and obey its dictates.
their hearts do not beat in unison
I turned my face away. She should not act thus. She ought not to excite my imagination with such displays of heavenly innocence and happiness, nor awaken my heart from its slumbers, in which it dreams of the worthlessness of life! And why not? Because she knows how much I love her.
I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing.
My dear friend, my energies are all prostrated: she can do with me what she pleases. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Well, I must do't. Away, my disposition, and possess me Some harlot's spirit! My throat of war be turn'd, Which quier'd with my drum, into a pipe Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice That babies lull asleep! The smiles of knaves Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys' tears take up The glasses of my sight! A beggar's tongue Make motion through my lips, and my arm'd knees, Who bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his That hath receiv'd an alms! I will not do't, Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth, And by my body's action teach my mind A most inherent baseness. — William Shakespeare

I don't possess a lot of self-confidence. I'm an actor so I simply act confident every time I hit the stage. — Arsenio Hall

I'd kill for you baby. Anyone even comes close to trying to take you away from me and I'll slit their motherfuckin' throat. You belong to me, you're mine, and right now, in this bed, I'm gonna do something else for the very first time. We both are. I'm gonna make love to you, Lilah. I'm gonna take you as mine, possess you. 'Cause there ain't no one out there...no one else who could do this to me, but you. — Tillie Cole

spurious credit for compositional skills he didn't possess. — Will Birch

In order to answer the question "Where am I going?" one needs to work for self-improvement, to possess decisiveness, to have a will to win and dedication to achieve the goal at all cost — Sunday Adelaja

He isn't like most guys, you know?'
I know.'
No, but do you really know? I mean here's the deal, what do most guys want from a woman? I'll tell you what we want. We want a warm body to sleep next to, preferably one with a nice pair of tits, maybe someone who'll cook for us and fuck us on a regular basis. Pretty simple, huh? Now, what we don't want is someone who's going to come in and disrupt our lives and steal our souls. That's what we fear most. We call it our freedom, but it's our souls we're talking about. You following me?'
I nodded.
Okay, good. Now forget it. Forget all that,' Pete said. 'Because Jacob's not like that. He's never been like that. He's a damn fool and he wants the exact opposite of all that. He wants someone to obsess over, someone to possess his soul, and those are his corny words, by the way, not mine. It's what he lives for. It's what he thinks life's all about. Do you get what I'm saying?'
I nodded again. — Tiffanie DeBartolo

The function of abundance is not to possess things but to use them and gather experiences. — Stuart Wilde

There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets 'things' with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns 'my' and 'mine' look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution. — A.W. Tozer

In practical matters the end is not mere speculative knowledge of what is to be done, but rather the doing of it. It is not enough to know about Virtue, then, but we must endeavor to possess it, and to use it, or to take any other steps that may make. — Aristotle.

I want you bound. And not on the outside. I'm working my way in."
"Gideon - "
"I won't ever take it further than you can handle," he promised, his eyes glittering hotly in the muted lighting. "But I'll take you to the edge."
I squirmed, both aroused and disturbed by the thought of giving up that much control. "Why?"
"Because you want to be mine and I want to possess you. We'll get there." His hand slid under my shirt and cupped my breast, his fingers rolling and tugging my nipple, igniting my body. — Sylvia Day

Back therefore we find ourselves returning. Back to the wisdom of the plough; back to the wisdom of those who follow the sea. It is all a matter of the wheel coming full-circle. For the sophisticated system of mental reactions to which we finally give our adherence is only the intellectualised reproduction of what more happily constituted natures, without knowing what they possess, possess. Thus between true philosophers and the true simple people there is a magnetic understanding; whereas, the clever ones whose bastard culture only divorces them from the wisdom of the earth remain pilloried and paralysed on the prongs of their own conceit. — John Cowper Powys

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receeding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you. — R.S. Thomas

It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have had to learn it. We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The more intelligent the storytelling becomes and the deeper the character development, people will realize in film and television, like they do in real life, that human beings possess both good and bad. — Robert LaSardo

This is the difference between an ordinary scribe and a literary writer. The highest level of literary creation is when the characters in a novel possess life in the mind of the writer. The writer is unable to control them, and might not even be able to predict the next action they will take. We can only follow them in wonder to observe and record the minute details of their lives like a voyeur. — Liu Cixin

I look. There it is. I feel it. The insistent pull to the heart that the hawk brings, that very old longing of mine to possess the hawk's eye. To live the safe and solitary life; to look down on the world from a height and keep it there. To be the watcher; invulnerable, detached, complete. My eyes fill with water. Here I am, I think. And I do not think I am safe. — Helen Macdonald

There is pleasure in reading a version of myself I know in my heart could never exist, since mine is not an iron mind coldly calculating every possible option and outcome. Instead I am a businessman who loves excitement, loves tension, loves risk and the unexpected, and just happens to possess an extraordinary, on occasion even miraculous, degree of good luck. — Jacob Wren

I shook to my core, my soul curving around her protectively as my mind strove to determine the logical calculation that could make her mine. I wanted to be hers as much - more - than I wanted to possess her, when I knew damned well that neither was possible. — Tammara Webber

We don't always possess faith in the sense of having a clear embodiment of something to hang on to. The relationship between the intellect and faith is a very curious one. Sometimes the intellect can point us to faith, sometimes the intellect can stand in the way of faith. Sometimes, as St John of the Cross points out, we have to darken or blind the intellect in order to have faith. — Kevin Hart

I have absolutely no histrionic talent, none at all, a constitutional handicap in almost all undertakings of life;but then, after all, plenty of actors possess little enough. — Anthony Powell

To make a choice not to sacrifice is to decide that I am better off allowing a life to perish than release the resources I possess that might allow it to thrive. And because of choices such as these, the life that I am really allowing to perish is mine. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Political writers argue in regard to the love of liberty with the same philosophy that philosophers do in regard to the state of nature; by the things they see they judge of things very different which they have never seen, and they attribute to men a natural inclination to slavery, on account of the patience with which the slaves within their notice carry the yoke; not reflecting that it is with liberty as with innocence and virtue, the value of which is not known but by those who possess them, though the relish for them is lost with the things themselves. I know the charms of your country, said Brasidas to a satrap who was comparing the life of the Spartans with that of the Persepolites; but you can not know the pleasures of mine. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Love hath so long possess'd me for his own
And made his lordship so familiar
That he, who at first irk'd me, is now grown
Unto my heart as its best secrets are.
And thus, when he in such sore wise doth mar
My life that all its strength seems gone from it.
Mine inmost being then feels thoroughly quit
Of anguish, and all evil keeps afar.
Love also gathers to such power in me
That my sighs speak, each one a grievous thing.
Always soliciting
My Gabriel's salutation piteously.
Whenever he beholds me, it is so,
Who is more sweet than any words can show. — Sylvain Reynard

I promise I'll never tell."
"Don't promise that," he said in an ultraserious voice. "If they try to hurt you and the only way to protect yourself is to tell them what you know about me, then you tell them. Straight off, okay?"
"No."
"Promise me."
"No!"
"I will possess your heart."
Heat flared along the back of my neck. "What did you say?"
"My favorite song. 'I Will Possess Your Heart.'"
"By Death Cab for Cutie?"
He snorted. "No, the little known T.I. Hip-hop remix. Yes, Death Cab for Cutie."
... "Why? What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing, but it doesn't seem to fit you. It's kind of a sad song."
"No it's pure confident. It's not 'I want' or 'I need', none of that crap." He slipped his hand over mine. "It's 'I will.'"
A nervous laugh bubbled up. "You will, huh?"
His fingers brushed my cheek, then slid into my hair. "I will. — Jeri Smith-Ready

He gave her a sly, sideways look. "Did you
bring it?"
"My list? Heavens, no. What can you be thinking?"
His smile widened. "I brought mine."
Daphne gasped. "You didn't!"
"I did. Just to torture Mother. I'm going peruse it right in front of her, pull out my quizzing glass - "
"You don't have a quizzing glass."
He grinned - the slow, devastatingly wicked smile that all Bridgerton males seemed to possess. "I bought one just for this occasion."
"Anthony, you absolutely cannot. She will kill you. And then, somehow, she'll find a way to blame me."
"I'm counting on it. — Julia Quinn

It is essential that our love be liberating, not possessive. We must at all times give those we love the freedom to be themselves. Love affirms the other as other. It does not possess and manipulate another as mine. — John Powell

Wars fought over a face like this," he murmured like he was talking to himself, my heart stopped beating and his thumbs moved lightly across my cheeks. "A man would work himself into the ground for it, go down to his knees to beg to keep it, endure torture to protect it, take a bullet for it," his eyes came to mine, "poison his brother to possess a face like this. — Kristen Ashley

Now I happen to possess the bump of locality. It is not a virtue; I make no boast of it. It is merely an animal instinct that I cannot help. That things occasionally get in my way - mountains, precipices, rivers, and such like obstructions - is no fault of mine. My instinct is correct enough; it is the earth that is wrong. I led them by the middle road. That the middle road had not character enough to continue for any quarter of a mile in the same direction; that after three miles up and down hill it ended abruptly in a wasps' nest, was not a thing that should have been laid to my door. If the middle road had gone in the direction it ought to have done, it would have taken us to where we wanted to go, of that I am convinced. — Jerome K. Jerome

Have you ever been anyone's?" I ask, a feathery whisper in the quiet bedroom. He lifts his head to mine, and I want him so bad I feel consumed inside, like he's already possessed my soul, and now my soul aches for him to possess my body. A powerful emotion tightens his features as he reaches out to cradle my cheek in his big hand, and there's an unexpected fierceness in his eyes, in his touch, as he cups me. "No. And you?" The calluses in his palm rasp on my skin, and I find myself tucking my cheek deeper into them. "I've never wanted to." "Neither have I." The moment is intimate. — Katy Evans

I don't think I possess any skill that anyone else doesn't have. I've just had perhaps more of an opportunity, more of an exposure, and been fortunate to survive a lot of situations that many other weren't so lucky to make it. It's not how close can you get to the ground, but how precise can you fly the airplane. If you feel so careless with you life that you want to be the world's lowest flying aviator you might do it for a while. But there are a great many former friends of mine who are no longer with us simply because they cut their margins to close. — Bob Hoover

Are you trying to make amends?" I said softly, teasing him.
He pulled me even closer, causing his immense shaft to press deeper into me. I gasped as the throb escalated.
"Maybe. It seems I cannot possess you without losing myself completely. Even now, I feel as if any moment could be the complete undoing of me. My release is my surrender and my vow. My body is my oath. I love you, my sweet Amelia. I am yours. — Juliette Miller

You're mine, mo duinne," he said softly, pressing himself into my depths. "Mine alone, now and forever. Mine, whether ye will it or no." I pulled against his grip, and sucked in my breath with a faint "ah" as he pressed even deeper. "Aye, I mean to use ye hard, my Sassenach," he whispered. "I want to own you, to possess you, body and soul." I struggled slightly and he pressed me down, hammering me, a solid, inexorable pounding that reached my womb with each stroke. "I mean to make ye call me 'Master,' Sassenach." His soft voice was a threat of revenge for the agonies of the last minutes. "I mean to make you mine. — Diana Gabaldon

Eternal tourists of ourselves, there is no landscape but what we are. We possess nothing, for we don't even possess ourselves. We have nothing because we are nothing. What hand will I reach out, and to what universe? The universe isn't mine: it's me. — Fernando Pessoa

Darling gave him a sad smile. "Maris and I have been to hell and home together. Back to back, we have defended each other with everything we possess. Anytime we needed to turn to someone, we called each other. Until today. When he thought he was dying, it was your voice he wanted to hear last. Not mine. Honestly, a part of me is a little hurt. I've never had to share him before with anyone. But I love him enough to let him go. His happiness means everything to me." "Me, too." Darling hugged him close. "Thank you for calling me." "Thank you for saving him." He pulled back and offered his hand to Ture. "Brothers?" "Brothers." * — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I have insane curiosity as to what happened in all these events. I will never know. I'm not a researcher. I don't possess that kind of mind. I have a researcher who compiles the fact sheets and chronologies that allow me to write these big books of mine. — James Ellroy

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

Each man deciphers from the ancient alphabets of nature only those secrets that his own deeps possess the power to endow with meaning. — Loren Eiseley

A leader in sports, business, or any other field of endeavor should possess and provide the same qualities inherent in a good parent: character, consistency, dependability, accountability, knowledge, good judgment, selflessness, respect, courage, discipline, fairness, and structure. — John Wooden

It's a very special talent that men have, to possess seeing eyes yet be so blind. — David Mitchell

I tried to hold on to this compassion, sensing its preciousness, but even as I reached to grasp it, it dissipated into wisps. No revelation can endure unless it is bolstered by a calm pure mind- and I'm afraid I didn't possess that. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Others of them employ outward marks ... They style themselves Gnostics. They also possess images, some of them painted and others formed from different kinds of material. They maintain that a likeness of Christ was made by Pilate at that time when Jesus lived among them. They crown these images, and set them up along with the images of the philosophers of the world, such as Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, and the rest. They have also other modes of honoring these images just like the Gentiles. — Irenaeus Of Lyons

If a supernatural being is to be exempt from natural law, it cannot possess specific, determinate
characteristics. These attributes would impose limits and these limits would restrict the capacities
of this supernatural being. In this case, a supernatural being would be subject to the causal
relationships that mark natural existence, which would disqualify it as a god. Therefore, we must
somehow conceive of a being without a specific nature, a being that is indeterminate - a being, in
other words, that is nothing in particular. But these characteristics (or, more precisely, lack of
characteristics) are incompatible with the notion of existence itself. — George H. Smith

Put another way, to be more confident you need to give a whole lot less of a shit about what other people think of you. Confidence is not something you feel or possess; it's something others use to describe what they see when they look at you. — Augusten Burroughs

People who want to do better in their lives show signs of feeling discomfort and vulnerability. These are people who also possess courage, because there will be a great deal of risk involved. — J.Morgan

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. — Thomas Jefferson

Satisfaction with who you are, what you looks must come first from within. You should feel good about yourself inside and out, and believe in the natural beauty you possess. Beauty prescribe attitude and good behavior, besides our face is the map of our soul. — Sassy

When we have done everything within our power, we shall possess a great deal: but we once possessed the world. — Seneca.

We believe that what we possess we don't ultimately own. God is merely entrusting it to us. And one of the conditions of that trust is that we share what we have with those who have less. So, if you don't give to people in need, you can hardly call yourself a Jew. Even the most unbelieving Jew knows that. — Jonathan Sacks

I suddenly see the world
as no longer viable:
you are out there burning the crops
with some new sublimate
This morning you left the bed
we still share
and went out to spread impotence
upon the world

I hate you.
I hate the mask you wear, your eyes
assuming a depth
they do not possess, drawing me
into the grotto of your skull
the landscape of bone
I hate your words
they make you think of fake
revolutionary bills
crisp imitation parchment
they sell at battlefields.

Last night, in this room, weeping
I asked you: what are you feeling?
do you feel anything?
Now in the torsion of your body
as you defoliate the fields we lived from
I have your answer. — Adrienne Rich

The truly monumental can only come about by means of the most exact and refined relation between parts. Since each thing carries both a meaning of its own and an associated meaning in relation to something else - its essential value is relative. We speak of the mood we experience when looking at a landscape. This mood results from the relation of certain things rather than from their separate actualities. This is because objects do not in themselves possess the total effect they give when interrelated. — Hans Hofmann

I've written for those who want to learn, truly learn, about a community with which they aren't familiar. Or for those who have preconceptions but can admit they may not be entirely accurate (and, in some cases, that they are completely wrong). This means my reader must possess an open mind and a certain level of curiosity. If that's you, proceed to checkout. An uncensored glimpse behind the curtain, hairy backs and all, awaits. — Daniel Stern

Don't give people the chance to possess you with their negativity; their gibberish can look so charming, but it can't make you a better person. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Which natural gift would you most like to possess? The ability to master other languages (which would have hugely enhanced the scope of these answers).
How would you like to die? Fully conscious, and either fighting or reciting (or fooling around).
What do you most dislike about your appearance? The way in which it makes former admirers search for neutral words. — Christopher Hitchens

Brothers and sisters, love the earth. Be true to the earth, and do not believe those seducers who look longingly to the world beyond, casting suspicion on this world. Jesus is the greatest friend of the earth-Jesus who again and again, in the original spirit of Judaism, proclaimed love for the soil and love for the land. "Blessed are the peacemakers," he said, "for they shall possess the earth." — Eberhard Arnold

Of course smart people know a lot and can therefore accomplish more than others less gifted. But hire them not for the knowledge they possess, but for the things they don't yet know. — Eric Schmidt

But I say to you, the Lord says, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you. Why did he command these things? So that he might free you from hatred, sadness, anger and grudges, and might grant you the greatest possession of all, perfect love, which is impossible to possess except by the one who loves all equally in imitation of God. — Maximus The Confessor

There is, indeed, nothing more vexing than to be, for example, rich, of good family, of decent appearance, fairly well educated, not stupid, rather good-hearted even, and at the same time to possess no talent, no special quality, no eccentricity even, not a single idea of one's own, to be precisely "like everyone else."
One is rich, but not so rich as Rothschild; of a good family, but one which has never distinguished itself in any way; of decent appearance, but an appearance expressive of very little; well educated, but without knowing what to do with that education; one is intelligent, but without one's own ideas; one is good-hearted, but without greatness of soul, and so on and so forth. There are a great number of such people in the world, far more than it appears. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

To bring about a genuine political realignment, Republicans must kill the Government Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs - the very Goose they have fought so hard and long to possess. — Jeb Bush

The poor man is incapacitated from showing the virtue of generosity to anyone, though he may possess it in the highest degree; and gratitude that consists of disposition only is a dead thing, just as faith without works is dead. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

It was all the things you could never understand and could never possess that made you ache. — Deb Caletti

To have a quiet mind is to possess one's mind wholly; to have a calm spirit is to possess one's self. — Hamilton Wright Mabie

Contempt for one's own comrades, for the troops of the enemy, and, above all, fierce contempt for one's own person, are what war demands of everyone. Far better is it for an army to be too savage, too cruel, too barbarous, than to possess too much sentimentality and human reasonableness. — William James

I am only bound to invoke Memory where I know her responses will possess some degree of interest. — Charlotte Bronte

Draw nigh to the righteous, and through them you will draw nigh to God. Communicate with those who possess humility, and you will learn morals from them. A man who follows one who loves God becomes rich in the mysteries of God; but he who follows an unrighteous and proud man gets far away from God, and will be hated by his friends. — Isaac Of Nineveh

Nor is it credible that any one should possess so little understanding as to desire the faith and yet be destitute of the most necessary faculty to enable him to receive it. — Pope Paul III

My son is 12 now, and is really getting into girls. A lot. But the thing about twelve year old boys is that they don't possess what I like to call that ... discretionary gene yet. We were walking home from the ballfield the other day and there was a woman walking towards us who was ... gifted. I saw them, and I saw him see them. But she was too close for me to go, "Dude, shut up." She hadn't walked two feet behind us and he goes "God dang, did you see the SIZE of those things?" And all I could say was "Yeah, I did!" — Bill Engvall

Zahra, what happens to you when I make my last wish?"
"When your third wish is granted, you will cease to be my master. You may possess the lamp, but you cannot call me. I will return to it and await the next Lampholder."
Abruptly he stands and walks across the room. When he reaches the wall, he turns and stares down at me. "So to win my revenge, I must lose you. — Jessica Khoury

The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade
Pants for the refuge of some rural shade,
Where all his long anxieties forgot
Amid the charms of a sequester'd spot,
Or recollected only to gild o'er
And add a smile to what was sweet before,
He may possess the joys he thinks he sees,
Lay his old age upon the lap of ease,
Improve the remnant of his wasted span.
And having lived a trifler, die a man. — William Cowper

Tragically though, it is that same life that is often least treasured or valued by men who possess it. — Sunday Adelaja

For believe me! - the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: - it will want to rule and possess, and you with it! — Friedrich Nietzsche

It's just that it's a good idea not to let him have your phone number unless you possess an industrial-grade answering machine." "What? Why's that?" "Well, he's one of those people who can only think when he's talking. When he has ideas, he has to talk them out to whoever will listen. Or, if the people themselves are not available, which is increasingly the case, their answering machines will do just as well. He just phones them up and talks at them. He has one secretary whose sole job is to collect tapes from people he might have phoned, transcribe them, sort them and give him the edited text the next day in a blue folder. — Douglas Adams

We are, after all, only trustees of the wealth we possess. Without the community and its resources ... there would be little wealth for anyone. — John Ruskin

These days, the only people who inquire about me are historians, theologians, and rebellious kids with black fingernails. They focus more on what I did than who I was, but at least I come to mind. The others - the good people of the world - aren't curious. They take the traditional stories at face value. Even if they do possess a little curiosity, they never admit to the fact that they have questions: Who was Judas, really? How did he live? Why did he do it? Did he go to heaven - or straight to hell? — Jason E. Royle