It is the first step in sociological wisdom, to recognize that the major advances in civilisation are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur: like unto an arrow in the hand of a child. The art of free society consists first in the maintenance of the symbolic code; and secondly in fearlessness of revision, to secure that the code serves those purposes which satisfy an enlightened reason. Those societies which cannot combine reverence to their symbols with freedom of revision, must ultimately decay either from anarchy, or from the slow atrophy of a life stifled by useless shadows.

My dad was good friends with the Bad Medicine Blues Band - one of the only blues bands in Fargo, as you can imagine! He took me out to see them play when I was 12 years old and I was really inspired by their guitar player, Ted Larsen.

Jonny Lang

I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world.

Margaret Mead

The vast majority of large scale change efforts fail. Which means that the probability that you have actually experienced a failure, and your people know that and are pessimistic, therefore, about trying something again, is very high.

John P. Kotter

When it came time to build a tabernacle, the Israelite women brought all their mirrors to Moses so he could use them to make God's building more beautiful. (Exodus 38:8.) They were far more interested in enjoying God's glory than reflecting on their own images.

Gwendolyn Diaz

Great leaders understand human behavior rather than the cybernetics of any function.

James Schorr

I dreamt of turrets and craggy ledges where the windswept rain blew in from the ocean with the odor of violets. A pale woman in Elizabethan dress stood beside my bed and whispered in my ear that the bells would ring. An old salt in an oilcloth jacket sat atop a piling, mending nets with an awl, while far out at sea a tiny aeroplane winged its way towards the setting sun.

Alan Bradley

Cosette, do you hear? he has come to that! he asks my forgiveness! And do you know what he has done for me, Cosette? He has saved my life. He has done more--he has given you to me. And after having saved me, and after having given you to me, Cosette, what has he done with himself? He has sacrificed himself. Behold the man. And he says to me the ingrate, to me the forgetful, to me the pitiless, to me the guilty one: Thanks! Cosette, my whole life passed at the feet of this man would be too little. That barricade, that sewer, that furnace, that cesspool,--all that he traversed for me, for thee, Cosette! He carried me away through all the deaths which he put aside before me, and accepted for himself. Every courage, every virtue, every heroism, every sanctity he possesses! Cosette, that man is an angel!

Victor Hugo

The Pope is an idol whose hands are tied and whose feet are kissed.

Voltaire (FrançoisMarie Arouet)

If one wants to get out and stay out of debt he should act his wage.

Source Unknown

In a way, he lost some of himself, some of his knack, and therefore some of the choices he might have had in life. But in losing those, he gained so much more freedom, so much more power, that he was clear winner in the bargain.

Orson Scott Card

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

Khalil Gibran

There are many satisfactions in public architecture but one of the greatest is the moment when you unveil a project and suddenly a group of adults

Curtis W. Fentress