The happiness of one's own heart alone cannot satisfy the soul one must try to include, as necessary to one's own happiness, the happiness of others.

I have my work and my faith... If that's boring to some people, I can't tell you how much I don't care.

Madonna Ciccone

A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts from his deepest convictions. Then, whatever the situation he may be in, he always knows what he must say and do. He may fall, but he cannot bring shame upon himself or his causes.

Mikhail Bakunin

I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch, A blind man battering blind men; Or into that most fecund ditch of all, The folly that man does Or must suffer, if he woos A proud woman not kindred of his soul.

William Butler Yeats

It's not politically correct to say that you love one child more than you love your others. I love of my kids, period, and they're all your favorites in different ways. But ask any parent who's been through some kind of crisis surrounding a child--a health scare, an academic snarl, an emotional problem--and we will tell you the truth. When something upends the equilibrium--when one child needs you more than the others--that imbalance becomes a black hole. You may never admit it out loud, but the one you love the most is the one who needs you more desperately than his siblings. What we really hope is that each child gets a turn. That we have deep enough reserves to be there for each of them, at different times.All this goes to hell when two of your children are pitted against each other, and both of them want you on their side.

Jodi Picoult

When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.

John Donne

The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.

John Ruskin

Those who talk on the razor-edge of double-meanings pluck the rarest blooms from the precipice on either side.

Logan Pearsall Smith

Death is the last enemy: once we've got past that I think everything will be alright.

Alice Thomas Ellis

When I am at home, I never go near the synagogue unless, say, there is a bar or bat mitzvah involving the children of friends. But when I am traveling, in a country where Jewish life is scarce or endangered, I often make a visit to the shul.

Christopher Hitchens

Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.

Publilius Syrus

If only [people] understood that every thought is both false and true! False by one-sidenedness resulting from man's inability to embrace the whole truth, and true as an expression of one fact of human endeavor.

Leo Tolstoy

All sacrifice and suffering is redemptive. It is used to either teach the individual or to help others. Nothing is by chance.

Arthur J. Russell