Conceit is incompatible with understanding.

Get it into your head once and for all, my simple and very fainthearted fellow, that what fools call humanness is nothing but a weakness born of fear and egoism; that this chimerical virtue, enslaving only weak men, is unknown to those whose character is formed by stoicism, courage, and philosophy.

Marquis de Sade

The audiences are there as a result of my history with the band but also as a result of my being able to reach people with a tune.

Bruce Springsteen

Virtues are in the popular estimate rather the exception than the rule.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I cannot admit this out loud. In the first place, we are expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only cook with organic food, and are equally at ease with the CEO and the PTA.

Jodi Picoult

If a star or studio chief or any other great movie personages find themselves sitting among a lot of nobodies, they get frightened - as if somebody was trying to demote them.

Marilyn Monroe

Theist and atheist: the fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name.

Samuel Butler

High expectations are the key to everything.

Sam Walton

Friendship is to be purchased only by friendship. A man may have authority over others, but he can never have their hearts but by giving his own.

Tom Wilson

In a few more days I'd anticipated telling Veronika that our injections had cured her heart condition. But in light of her unscheduled departure form Villette my telling that particular lie will not be required. The majority of people who attempt suicide repeat that attempt until they succeed. I took a risk in lying to her about her condition, i decided to test the only remedy i have come to have any faith in: awareness of life. Until she finds out from some other doctor that she is perfectly healthy. She'll consider each day a miracle. Which in my view it is.

Paulo Coelho

The Establishment center... has led us into the stupidest and cruelest war in all history. That war is a moral and political disaster - a terrible cancer eating away at the soul of our nation.

George McGovern

But, if you observe children learning in their first few years of life, you can see that they can and do learn on their own - we leave them alone to crawl, walk, talk, and gain control over their bodies. It happens without much help from parents.

Daniel Greenberg

I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war. I vote no.

Jeannette Rankin