I can reason down or deny everything, except this perpetual Belly: feed he must and will, and I cannot make him respectable.

The more familiar acquaintance we have with God the more do we partake of him. He that passes by the fire may have some gleams of heat, but he that stands by it has his colour changed. It is not possible that a man should have any long conference with God and be no whit affected. If we are strangers to God it is no wonder that our faces become earthy.

William Bramwell

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice.

Henry David Thoreau

Although he's regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics.

George J. Mitchell

Remaining for a moment with the question of legality and illegality: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368, unanimously passed, explicitly recognized the right of the United States to self-defense and further called upon all member states 'to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of the terrorist attacks. It added that 'those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of those acts will be held accountable.' In a speech the following month, the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan publicly acknowledged the right of self-defense as a legitimate basis for military action. The SEAL unit dispatched by President Obama to Abbottabad was large enough to allow for the contingency of bin-Laden's capture and detention. The naïve statement that he was 'unarmed' when shot is only loosely compatible with the fact that he was housed in a military garrison town, had a loaded automatic weapon in the room with him, could well have been wearing a suicide vest, had stated repeatedly that he would never be taken alive, was the commander of one of the most violent organizations in history, and had declared himself at war with the United States. It perhaps says something that not even the most casuistic apologist for al-Qaeda has ever even attempted to justify any of its 'operations' in terms that could be covered by any known law, with the possible exception of some sanguinary verses of the Koran.

Christopher Hitchens

What should a wise person do when given a blow? Same as Cato when he was attacked; not fire up or revenge the insult., or even return the blow, but simply ignore it.

Seneca (Seneca the Elder)

If I had to think of what I would do different in my whole career, it's that I never would have picked up a beer, bottle of vodka. That definitely changed my life. That is an Achilles' heel for me.

Jayson Williams

We have inherited the past; we can create the future.

Source Unknown

It's interesting because people assume that because I'm famous I know all famous people.

Daniel Radcliffe

Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.

Ambrose Bierce

Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.

Alfred North Whitehead

As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits, which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A conventional good read is usually a bad read, a relaxing bath in what we know already. A true good read is surely an act of innovative creation in which we, the readers, become conspirators.

Malcolm Bradbury