After dinner Natasha went to the clavichord, at Prince Andrey's request, and began singing. Prince Andrey stood at the window, talking to the ladies, and listened to her. In the middle of a phrase, Prince Andrey ceased speaking, and felt suddenly a lump in his throat from tears, the possibility of which he had never dreamed of in himself. He looked at Natasha singing, and something new and blissful stirred in his soul. He was happy, and at the same time he was sad. He certainly had nothing to weep about, but he was ready to weep. For what? For his past love? For the little princess? For his lost illusions? For his hopes for the future? Yes, and no. The chief thing which made him ready to weep was a sudden, vivid sense of the fearful contrast between something infinitely great and illimitable existing in him, and something limited and material, which he himself was, and even she was. This contrast made his heart ache, and rejoiced him while she was singing.

Always think of what is useful and not what is beautiful. Beauty will come of its own accord.

Nikolai Gogol

How do you know if your mission in life is finished? If you're still alive, it isn't.

Richard Bach

People never improve unless they look to some standard or example higher or better than themselves.

Tryon Edwards

No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.

George Washington

But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you, but you must master it. Genesis 4:7

Bible

I have a grandson who is 20. He's a computer guy. I'm worried that he can't communicate without his machine. They have no personal contact with people. That's the bad part of technology.

Penny Marshall

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.

Laurence J. Peter

I look at the car park and myself and Dave Watson come in with our old cars, and these young lads come in with their new Porches. I think that society has changed, there seems to be a lack of respect nowadays.

Richard Gough

He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

William Blake

Everywhere is the tabooed, or the disregarded. The monks of science dwell in smuggeries that are walled away from event-jungles. Or some of them do. Nowadays a good many of them are going native.

Charles Fort

To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct.

Mark Twain

One of my grandfathers, actually, having gone out there as a minister, decided he would better serve the people as a doctor. So at a very late age - at the age of 38 in fact - he changed course and decided to become a doctor.

Colin Firth