A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him.

There is held to be no surer test of civilization than the increase per head of the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Yet alcohol and tobacco are recognizable poisons, so that their consumption has only to be carried far enough to destroy civilization altogether.

Havelock Ellis

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

Ronald Reagan

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.

John F. Kennedy

Success can make you go one of two ways. It can make you a prima donna, or it can smooth the edges, take away the insecurities, let the nice things come out.

Barbara Walters

If I could get any animal it would be a dolphin. I want one so bad. Me and my mom went swimming with dolphins and I was like, 'How do we get one of those?' and she was like, 'You can't get a dolphin. What are you gonna do, like, put it in your pool?'

Miley Cyrus

...The city fireman-the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-pack'd square, The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring,The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line,the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water,The slender, spasmic, blue-white jets-the bringing to bear of the hooks and ladders, and their execution,The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or through floors, if the fire smoulders under them,The crowd with their lit faces, watching-the glare and dense shadows;....

Walt Whitman, The Song of the Br

'Tis a sort of duty to be rich, that it may be in one's power to do good, riches being another word for power.

Mary Wortley Montagu

...congenital killers and criminals are possessed of not one but two Y chromosomes, bearing a double dose, as it were, of genetically undesirable maleness.

Elizabeth Gould Davis, The First

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

Jonathan Swift

Cowardice... is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend functioning of the imagination.

Ernest Hemingway

The greatest wisdom is to realize one's lack of it.

Constantin Stanislavski

Bernard always had a few prayers in the hall and some whiskey afterwards as he was rather pious.

Daisy Ashford