He hates chess. He says it is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something clever when they are only wasting their time.

The fundamental fact about the Greek was that he had to use his mind. The ancient priests had said, Thus far and no farther. We set the limits of thought. The Greek said, All things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set on thought.

Edith Hamilton

I grew up in South Africa and I would look at maps and we were at the bottom of the world. There was this whole thing up there. I was always reading encyclopedias about the world. So travel was something I was always attracted to.

Charlize Theron

Boldness is business is the first, second, and third thing.

H. G. Bohn

It is absurd to hold that a man should be ashamed of an inability to defend himself with his limbs, but not ashamed of an inability to defend himself with speech and reason; for the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.

Aristotle

There are four things every person has more of than they know; sins, debt, years, and foes.

Proverb

Man is a slow, sloppy and brilliant thinker; the machine is fast, accurate and stupid.

William M. Kelly

The failure wishes he could do things he could never do. He thinks little of what he can do.

Mark Caine

Failure too is a form of death.

Graham Greene

The whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish day-dream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.

George Orwell

Candor is a compliment it implies equality. It's how true friends talk.

Peggy Noonan

The Volunteer AT dawn, he said, I bid them all farewell,To go where bugles call and rifles gleam.And with the restless thought asleep he fell,And glided into dream.A great hot plain from sea to mountain spread, -Through it a level river slowly drawn:He moved with a vast crowd, and at its headStreamed banners like the dawn.There came a blinding flash, a deafening roar,And dissonant cries of triumph and dismay;Blood trickled down the river's reedy shore,And with the dead he lay.The morn broke in upon his solemn dream,And still, with steady pulse and deepening eye,Where bugles call, he said, and rifles gleam,I follow, though I die!

Elbridge Jefferson Cutler, Yale

You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.

W. Somerset Maugham