Among the weeds choking out growth and good government are the hundreds of boards, commissions, and advisory committees that have sprouted over the years. They devour time, money, and energy far beyond any real contribution they make.

Probably induced by the asthma, I started reading and writing early on, my literary efforts from the age of about nine running chiefly to poetry and plays.

Patrick White

A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still

Friedrich Nietzsche

The dew of compassion is a tear.

Lord (George Gordon) Byron

Culture is one thing and varnish is another.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Prayer is talking with God and telling Him you love Him, conversing with God about all the things that are important in life, both large and small, and being assured that He is listening.

C. Neil Strait

The nearer people approach old age the closer they return to a semblance of childhood, until the time comes for them to depart this life, again like children, neither tired of living nor aware of death.

Desiderius Erasmus

Rational free spirits are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoiter the ground which the heavy brigade of the orthodox will eventually occupy.

G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenb

Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heartone of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man.

Edgar Allan Poe

Many possessions, if they do not make a man better, are at least expected to make his children happier and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions.

George Santayana

I don't know yet whether I fully believe in fate, but certain things do happen in a man's life that he cannot explain.

David Gemmell

Nature does nothing in vain.

Aristotle

Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

Plato