I don't believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career.

No idea can succeed except at the expense of sacrifice; no one ever escapes without enduring strain from the struggle of life.

Ernest Renan

Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and literature.

Oscar Wilde

There is no need to waste pity on young girls who are having their moments of disillusionment, for in another moment they will recover their illusion.

Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our father's have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a large part than what we suspect of what we think.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

Voltaire

When you return to your homes rise up to the height of a generation of men worthy of a free Government, and we will carry out the great work we have commenced. I return to you my sincere thanks, soldiers, for the honor you have done me this afternoon.

Abraham Lincoln

Human life is not some sort of race or game in which each person should start from an identical mark. It is an attempt by each man to be as happy as possible. And each person could not begin from the same point, for the world has not just come into being; it is diverse and infinitely varied in its parts. The mere fact that one individual is necessarily born in a different place from someone else immediately insures that his inherited opportunity cannot be the same as his neighbor's. The drive for equality of opportunity would also require the abolition of the family since different parents have unequal abilities; it would require the communal rearing of children. The State would have to nationalize all babies and raise them in State nurseries under 'equal' conditions. But even here conditions cannot be the same, because different State officials will themselves have different abilities and personalities. And equality can never be achieved because of necessary differences of location.

Murray N. Rothbard

This is night, Diddykins. That's what we call it when it goes all dark like this.

J.K. Rowling

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of a man you are. It shows me what your ideal of manhood is, and what kind of a man you long to be.

Thomas Carlyle

No Christian has ever been known to recant on his death bed.

C. M. Ward

I'm not someone who likes to have my picture taken, let alone see it plastered all over the place.

Laura Linney

Foreign policy is about trying to deliver for them the best possible economic benefits, the chance to travel, to study, to work, the opportunity through trade to be able to sell their goods and services and as much peace and security so they can live and bring their kids up so they don't have to fear war.

Catherine Ashton