Half the published articles on Gaza contain a standard reference to its resemblance to a vast open-air prison (and when I last saw it under Israeli occupation it certainly did deserve this metaphor). The problem is that, given its ideology and its allies, Hamas qualifies rather too well in the capacity of guard and warder.

Had it not been for you, I should have remained what I was when we first met, a prejudiced, narrow-minded being, with contracted sympathies and false knowledge, wasting my life on obsolete trifles, and utterly insensible to the privilege of living in this wondrous age of change and progress.

Benjamin Disraeli

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Karl Marx

Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.

George Orwell

In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.

Coco Chanel

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

Benjamin Franklin, 1759

I wanted to make a living, but I really was not interested in money at all. I was interested in being a great comedian.

Larry David

I hate birthdays. I thought that I only hated my own birthday, and then I realized that I hate my children's birthdays too.

Samantha Bee

Tie your self worth to something that you will lose, and you'll be left with nothing.

SevenSevens

Live poor so you can die rich.

Source Unknown

How frail and ephemeral is the material substance of letters, which makes their very survival so hazardous. Print has a permanence of its own, though it may not be much worth preserving, but a letter! Conveyed by uncertain transportation, over which the sender has no control; committed to a single individual who may be careless or inappreciative; left to the mercy of future generations, of families maybe anxious to suppress the past, of the accidents of removals and house-cleanings, or of mere ignorance. How often it has been by the veriest chance that they have survived at all.

Elizabeth Drew

Painting is by nature a luminous language.

Robert Delaunay

We will not be intimidated or pushed off the world stage by people who do not like what we stand for, and that is, freedom, democracy and the fight against disease, poverty and terrorism.

Madeleine Albright