The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)

One thing you can't recycle is wasted time.

Anon.

When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented.

Samuel Butler

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Galileo Galilei

If a marker were to be erected today, it might read, in homage to his scientific courage: He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions.

Carl Sagan

I was born into Bolívar's labyrinth, and so I must believe in the hope of Rabelais' Great Perhaps.

John Green

And of all plagues with which mankind are cursed, ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst.

Daniel Defoe

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking

Albert Einstein

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

These are the times that try men's souls.

Thomas Paine

I probably hold the distinction of being one movie star who, by all laws of logic, should never have made it. At each stage of my career, I lacked the experience.

Audrey Hepburn

I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

William Shakespeare