Believing that the happiness of mankind is best promoted by the useful pursuits of peace, that on these alone a stable prosperity can be founded, that the evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come, I have used my best endeavors to keep our country uncommitted in the troubles which afflict Europe, and which assail us on every side.

I don't know what it is about fecundity that so appalls. I suppose it is the teeming evidence that birth and growth, which we value, are ubiquitous and blind, that life itself is so astonishingly cheap, that nature is as careless as it is bountiful, and that with extravagance goes a crushing waste that will one day include our own cheap lives.

Annie Dillard

This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Well, I'm not afraid to say something if I think it's funny, even if it's harsh or racist.

Sarah Silverman

To be given the opportunity to help shape new artists' careers and mentor them to see their dreams come to fruition is a task I welcome with open arms.

Christina Aguilera

The mind is a wonderful thing. It starts working the minute you're born and never stops working until you get up to speak in public.

Patricia Ann Ball

Love is what happens to a man and woman who don't know each other.

W. Somerset Maugham

We mean by politics the people's business -- the most important business there is.

Adlai Stevenson

Most kids don't give a hoot in hell for brains; they go a penny a pound, and the kid with the high I.Q. who can't play baseball or at least come in third in the local circle jerk is everybody's fifth wheel.

Stephen King

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

Will Rogers

When is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

Voltaire

Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right.

Jane Goodall

Success is not something I've wrapped my brain around. If people go to those movies, then yes, that's true, big-time success. If not, it's much ado about nothing.

Matt Damon