But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means? Anybody can say charming things and try to please and to flatter, but a true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good.

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.

Salman Rushdie

Life ain't always beautiful, but it's a beautiful ride.

Gary Allan

Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.

Oscar Wilde

Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions, present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries, as if the desire for choice and happiness is the monopoly of women in the west.

Azar Nafisi

Justice consists of doing no one injury, decency in giving no one offense.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

Thomas Jefferson

With nothing can one approach a work of art so little as with critical words: they always come down to more or less happy misunderstandings.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a

Oh, I wish I were a miser; being a miser must be so occupying.

Gertrude Stein

All joy... emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings.

C.S. Lewis

The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.

Don Barthelme

Give me your trust and confidence, knowing that what I seek is for the good of Fiji, for the good of us all.

Josefa Iloilo

It will be very generally found that those who will sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples

Charles Dickens