You can chase a butterfly all over the field and never catch it. But if you sit quietly in the grass it will come and sit on your shoulder.

It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive.

Thomas Mann

If we're given a number of circumstances to deal with, the brain goes into this mode of trying to find a solution, and it's amazing how good we are at it.

Jon Brion

Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good. 'Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

She was the Judy Garland of American poetry.

James Dickey

It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.

George Santayana

Implicitly or explicitly, the rhythms of our lives, the movement from season to season, the patterns of the winds, and the pulse of the tides all depend on the apparent motions of the sun and moon and stars. Yet most modern urban dwellers are only dimly aware of the night sky ? the stars and their myriad forms. They are only slightly more aware of the phases of the moon or the motions of the sun. Even those who take the daily horoscope seriously generally have a very poor notion of its connection with astronomical phenomena.

Ray A. Williamson

Our son is in school now. You know, he's six-and-a-half and so a big chunk of the day is taken up by school. So I'm hoping that I'll be able to certainly take him to school in the morning, maybe pick him up in the afternoon and come back to work.

Connie Chung

Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.

Richard Dawkins

I absolutely don't think a sentient artificial intelligence is going to wage war against the human species.

Daniel H. Wilson

You need nothing more than the experience you are having right now. It is enough. It is plenty. It is perfect just as it is. It was designed for you, given to you for your experience. All you have to do, and all you have ever had to do is accept this gift. Take it and let it in. Let yourself experience the present moment just as it is. It doesn't get any better than this. This is the simple truth the ego refuses to accept, and it will suffer as long as that is the case.

Gina Lake

My dad never told me that when you audition, you might not get the role. He wanted to wait until my first disappointment to tell me.

Haley Joel Osment

Music is very spiritual, it has the power to bring people together.

Edgar Winter