Five tender apricots in a blue bowl, a brief and exact promise of things to come.

Ever since Eve started it all by offering Adam the apple, woman's punishment has been to supply a man with food then suffer the consequences when it disagrees with him.

Helen Rowland

Anecdotes and maxims are rich treasures to the man of the world, for he knows how to introduce the former at fit place in conversation.

Johann von Goethe

The human condition today is better than it's ever been, and technology is one of the reasons for that.

Tom Clancy

In civilized society man stands at all times in need of the cooperation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. . . . Man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. . . . Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens.

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nation

I think a lot of times on TV we see caricatures - that's what's funny.

Mayim Bialik

Comfort is the only thing our civilization can give us.

Oscar Wilde

I know that throughout their history, the people of the United States defended their freedom, their liberty, their justice, and their rights - if need be - with their lives. I think their courage is so admirable.

Lee Myung-bak

It was in Spain that [my generation] learned that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own recompense. It is this, doubtless, which explains why so many, the world over, feel the Spanish drama as a personal tragedy.

Albert Camus

Life is fired at us point blank.

Jose Ortega y Gasset

Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information.I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that?I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person.

Oscar Wilde

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, the right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. Those are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.

Samuel Adams

The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.

Arthur Schopenhauer