The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of water; in male and female; in the equation of quantity and quality; in the fluids of the animal body; in the systole an

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everything is a learning process: any time you fall over, it's just teaching you to stand up the next time.

Joel Edgerton

Although Kurt Vonnegut may not be considered a humor writer, 'Breakfast of Champions' is one of the funniest books I've ever read.

Justin Halpern

Justice, Sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Wherever her temple stands, and so long as it is duly honoured, there is a foundation for social security; general happiness and the improvement and progress of our race. And whoever labours on this edifice with usefulness and distinction, whoever clears its foundations, strenthens its pillars, adores its entablatures or contributes to raise its august dome, still higher in the skies, connects himself in name and fame and character with that which is and must be as durable as the freedom of human society.

Daniel Webster, funeral oration

My grief lies all within, And these external manners of lament Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortured soul

William Shakespeare

The truth. Men will blind themselves with hot irons, rather than face it.

David Gemmell

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.

Robert Frost

Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly -- that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to oneself. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion -- these are the two things that govern us.

Oscar Wilde

My mom has always been my support system. She taught me to never give up and to keep pursuing my passions no matter what.

Mandy Moore

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone.

Samuel Johnson

You play the hand you're dealt. I think the game's worthwhile.

Christopher Reeve

Happy he who learns to bear what he cannot change.

Friedrich von Schiller