Why is it that an extended olive branch often turns to a clinched fist of hatred?

I was sat at the bottom of the garden a week ago, smoking a reflective cheroot, thinking about this and that - mostly that, and I just happened to glance at the night sky and I marvelled at the millions of stars glistening like pieces of quicksilver thrown carelessly onto black velvet. In awe I watched the waxen moon ride across the zenith of the heavens like an amber chariot towards the void of infinite space wherein the tethered bolts of Jupiter and Mars hang forever in their orbital majesty; and as I looked at all this, I thought, 'I must put a roof on this lavatory.'

Les Dawson

I was a sickly baby, and after two sets of adoptive parents took me home, they returned me to the orphanage because of a serious respiratory infection. But as they say, the third time's a charm, because my mom and dad adopted me and took me into their home where I was raised in a family full of love.

Rodney Atkins

On their sofas of spice and feathers, the concubines also slept fretfully. In those days the Earth was still flat, and people dreamed often of falling over edges.

Tom Robbins

Beware what you wish for, unless you have the grace to hope that your luck can be shared.

Christopher Hitchens

A good cigar is as great a comfort to a man as a good cry is to a woman.

Edward George BulwerLytton

Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

In our systems work through simplicity, consistency, and repetition.

Jack Kinder

The theory of relativity worked out by Mr. Einstein, which is in the domain of natural science, I believe can also be applied to the political field. Both democracy and human rights are relative concepts - and not absolute and general.

Jiang Zemin

With close-lipped Patience for our only friend, Sad Patience, too near neighbor to Despair.

Matthew Arnold

I hate to be near the sea, and to hear it roaring and raging like a wild beast in its den. It puts me in mind of the everlasting efforts of the human mind, struggling to be free, and ending just where it began.

William Hazlitt

Why did I want to win? because I didn't want to lose!

Max Schmelling

Strength instead of being the lusty child of passion, grows by grappling with and subduing them.

James M. Barrie