The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them.

Since the nature of people is bad, to become corrected they must be taught by teachers and to be orderly they must acquire ritual and moral principles.

Xun Zi

How often had she wondered what would have happened if she'd remained with Jonathan? Not often, but regularly over the years. It was impossible not to have imagined that rejected future, a life of many countries, of vast and enduring adventure, of tiny rooms and rental houses. It was the sense of missed opportunity that returned to her, frightening but real, overwhelmingly real.

Michael Stein

The foolish sayings of a rich man pass for wise ones.

Proverb

The air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land we inhabit are not only critical elements in the quality of life we enjoy - they are a reflection of the majesty of our Creator.

Rick Perry

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.

Nelson Mandela

When I was seventeen, I worked as a counsellor at a co-ed sleep-away camp for eight weeks. I loved it but it could be harrowing - it was far too much responsibility for someone my age.

Harlan Coben

As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found - in himself.

Erich Fromm

When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace.

John Lubbock

There's a lot of great movies that have won the Academy Award, and a lot of great movies that haven't. You just do the best you can.

Clint Eastwood

I have a certain pool of subject matter that I like to write about, things that interest me: politics, religion, ecology, and relationships between men and women. And that's usually what I focus on.

Don Henley

Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession; it is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed.

Vida D. Scudder

We were that generation called silent, but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period's official optimism nor, as others thought, because we feared its official repression. We were silent because the exhilaration of social action seemed to many of us just one more way of escaping the personal, of masking for a while that dread of the meaningless which was man's fate.

Joan Didion