We are biological creatures. We are born, we live, we die. There is no transcendent purpose to existence. At best we are creatures of reason, and by using reason we can cure ourselves of emotional excess. Purged of both hope and fear, we find courage in the face of helplessness, insignificance and uncertainty.

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

Robert Frost

You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory.

J. Donald Walters

Joint undertakings stand a better chance when they benefit both sides.

Euripides

Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained

Samuel Johnson

Oh! hush these suspicions, Fair Imogine said, Offensive to Love and to me! For if ye be living, or if ye be dead, I swear by the Virgin, that none in your stead Shall Husband of Imogine be.

Matthew Lewis

YER OF THE VIGILE DEL FUOCO Lord who light the skyes and fill up the abysses,burn in our breast the flame of sacrifice.Strenghten the spirit of service that burn in us,make safe our eye, steady our foot,to make effective the rescue that in your name we bringto brothers in danger.When the siren shrieks in the streets of the town,listen the throb of our earths devoted to renounce.When in competition with eagles we climb to You,support us Your sored hand.When the fire irresistible flares up,burns the evil nestled in the houses of men,not the life and affections of Your sons.Lord, we are the bearer of Your Cross,and risk is our daily bread.A day without risk is not lived,because for we believers death is life,is light: in the dread of collapses, in the fury of waters,in the hell of fires.Our life is the fire, our faith is God.For Saint Barbara martyr.AMEN

Anon., The prayer of italian fir

Life on board a pleasure steamer violates every moral and physical condition of healthy life except fresh air... It is a guzzling, lounging, gambling, dog's life. The only alternative to excitement is irritability.

George Bernard Shaw

Let your children go if you want to keep them.

Malcolm Stevenson Forbes

Music for me, it demands full concentration.

Paulo Coelho

Misfortunes one can endure -- they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one's own faults -- Ah! there is the sting of life.

Oscar Wilde

What's fascinating about D.C., the exteriors are these elaborate structures, this gorgeous architecture and beautiful stonework, and then you go inside and it's crap-looking - apart from the White House, which is beautiful.

Tony Hale

Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.

Martin Luther King Jr.