Ceremonies are important. But our gratitude has to be more than visits to the troops, and once-a-year Memorial Day ceremonies. We honor the dead best by treating the living well.

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave and eats a bread it does not harvest. Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful. Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening. Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block. Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting, and farewells him with hooting, only to welcome another with trumpeting again. Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strongmen are yet in the cradle. Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

Kahlil Gibran

In the world through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself.

Frantz Fanon

To evade such temptations is the first duty of the poet. For as the ear is the antechamber to the soul, poetry can adulterate and destroy more surely then lust or gunpowder. The poet's, then, is the highest office of all. His words reach where others fall short. A silly song of Shakespeare's has done more for the poor and the wicked than all the preachers and philanthropists in the world.

Virginia Woolf

Disagreement produces debate but dissent produces dissension. Dissent (which come from the Latin, dis and sentire) means originally to feel apart from others. People who disagree have an argument, but people who dissent have a quarrel. People may disagree and both may count themselves in the majority. But a person who dissents is by definition in a minority. A liberal society thrives on disagreement but is killed by dissension. Disagreement is the life blood of democracy, dissension is its cancer.

Daniel J. Boorstin

Do not free the camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

G. K. Chesterton

It's never been my purpose to become an American icon, or more famous or richer.

Juliette Binoche

I see no way out of the problems that organized religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves.

E. O. Wilson

It's better to take over and build upon an existing business than to start a new one.

Harold S. Geneen

How does one know if she has forgiven? You tend to feel sorrow over the circumstance instead of rage, you tend to feel sorry for the person rather than angry with him. You tend to have nothing left to say about it all.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

A man profits more by the sight of an idiot than by the orations of the learned.

Arabic Proverb

That's the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do.

Mark Twain

It is simpler and easier to flatter people than to praise them.

Jean Paul Richter