Bravery is not the trait of a fearless person, lest the reckless actions of a fool be considered brave. Bravery is the quality that allows us to overcome our fears and succeed.

Say something in Mandarin, said Tessa, with a smile.Jem said something that sounded like a lot of breathy vowels andconsonants run together, his voice rising and falling melodically: Nihen piao liang.What did you say? Tessa was curious.I said your hair is coming undone here, he said, and reached outand tucked an escaping curl back behind her ear. Tessa felt the bloodspill hot up into her face, and was glad for the dimness of thecarriage. You have to be careful with it, he said, taking his handback, slowly, his fingers lingering against her cheek.

Cassandra Clare

If we want to know what happiness is we must seek it, not as if it were a part of gold at the end of the rainbow, but among human beings who are living richly and fully the good life. If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double Dahlias in his garden. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar gold button that has rolled under the cupboard in his bed room. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living 24 crowded hours of the day. If you live only for yourself you are always an immediate danger of being bored to death with the repetition of your own views and interests. No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellowmen. If your ambition has the momentum of an express train at full speed, if you can no longer stop your mad rush for glory, power, or intellectual supremacy, try to divert your energies into socially useful channels before it is too late.For those who seek the larger happiness and greater effectiveness open to human beings there can be but one philosophy of life, a philosophy of constructive altruism. The truly happy man is always a fighting optimist. Optimism includes not only altruism but also social responsibility, social courage and objectivity. The good life demands a working philosophy as an orientating map of conduct. This is the golden way of life. This is the satisfying life. This is the way to be happy though human.

W. Beran Wolfe, 'How To Be Happy

Each is responsible for his own actions.

H. L. Hunt

Newton Pulsifer had never...as far as he knew, ever believed in anything. It had been embarrassing, because he quite wanted to believe in something, since he recognized that belief was the lifebelt that got most people through the choppy waters of Life. He'd have liked to believe in a supreme God, although he'd have preferred a half-hour's chat with Him before committing himself, to clear up one or two points. He'd sat in all sorts of churches, waiting for that single flash of blue light, and it hadn't come. And then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard, self-satisfied strength of belief even for that. And every single political party had seemed to him equally dishonest. ....Then he'd tried believing in the Universe, which seemed sound enough until he'd innocently started reading new books with words like Chaos and Time and Quantum in the titles. He'd found that even the people whose job of work was, so to speak, the Universe, didn't really believe in it and were actually quite proud of not knowing what it really was or even if it could theoretically exist.To Newt's straightforward mind this was intolerable.

Neil Gaiman

Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.

Martha Graham

The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance

Thomas Jefferson

I think I am done with Wikipedia for the time being. But I have a secret hope. Someone recently proposed a Wikimorgue - a bin of broken dreams where all rejects could still be read, as long as they weren't libelous or otherwise illegal.

Nicholson Baker

Each year one vicious habit rooted out, in time might make the worst man good throughout.

Benjamin Franklin

My awards are lovely. I love to show them of.

Doris Roberts

Winny would spend all of his time practicing limbo. He gotpretty good. He could go under a rug.

Steven Wright

Beauty is the first present nature gives to women and the first it takes away.

Fay Weldon

The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race.

Gough Whitlam