...good words - that triumphalism of positivity- but life will claw and eat you - chew you over and over - if you carry such a small knife ...

.. art and life are no longer separate domains....The word 'art' no longer has anything to say to us. In place of that, we (= De Stijl) insist upon the construction of our surroundings according to creative laws, deriving from a fixed principle.

Theo van Doesburg

The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter.

Sir Joshua Reynolds

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of ;antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.

Joseph Addison

Love is the self delusion we manufacture to justify the trouble we take to have sex.

Daniel S. Greenberg

He did not seek to assume the mantle of Elijah, to shed a light of the future upon the misty turmoil of events or resolve the prevailing light into a single flame; there was in him nothing of the prophet or the mystic. He was a simple soul who loved, and that was all.

Victor Hugo

It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.

Robert H. Goddard

Ah music,' he said, wiping his eyes. 'A magic beyond all we do here!

J.K. Rowling

Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.

John Steinbeck

What annoys the hell out of me is the arrogance of some people. They don't even listen to our music, they decided in advance that they don't like it.

Billie Joe Armstrong

In the aftermath of the recent wave action in the Indian Ocean, even the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williamson [], proved himself a latter-day Voltairean by whimpering that he could see how this might shake belief in a friendly creator. Williamson is of course a notorious fool, who does an almost perfect imitation of a bleating and frightened sheep, but even so, one is forced to rub one's eyes in astonishment. Is it possible that a grown man could live so long and still have his personal composure, not to mention his lifetime job description, upset by a large ripple of seawater?

Christopher Hitchens

All the worlds a stage,And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurses arms. Then the whining school-boy, with his satchelAnd shining morning face, creeping like snailUnwillingly to school. And then the lover,Sighing like furnace, with a woeful balladMade to his mistress eyebrow. Then a soldier,Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,Seeking the bubble reputationEven in the cannons mouth. And then the justice,In fair round belly with good capon lind,With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,Full of wise saws and modern instances;And so he plays his part. The sixth age shiftsInto the lean and slipperd pantaloon dotard,With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,His youthful hose, well savd, a world too wideFor his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,Turning again toward childish treble, pipesAnd whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,That ends this strange eventful history,Is second childishness and mere oblivion,Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

William Shakespeare

It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer