Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

Progress is measured by the degree of differentiation within a society.

Herbert Read

And what new life can emerge from a book. Any book, maybe.

Gregory Maguire

I don't think that sin and pursuing happiness are not necessarily the same thing.

Dan Savage

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.

Friedrich Nietzsche

It's amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions.

Ben Stein

Liberty is a harsh mistress. You cannot pick and choose what you like and dislike about her. Liberty will not change her principles for you, no matter how much you claim to love her. She will stand fast in her demands for total acceptance. If you can't receive her, she will recognize you as a false lover and leave you. And when you hear that door slam, it will take every tear in your eye, every ounce of blood in your veins, and all the nerve in your heart to win her back.

Bill Masters

One little bird not larger than a sparrow, it may have been a Phalarope, would alight on the turbulent surface where the breakers were five or six feet high, and float buoyantly there like a duck, cunningly taking to its wings and lifting itself a few feet through the air over the foaming crest of each breaker, but sometimes outriding safely a considerable billow which hid it some seconds, when its instinct told it that it would not break. It was a little creature thus to sport with the ocean, but it was as perfect a success in its way as the breakers in theirs.

Henry David Thoreau, The Beach A

We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.

Alain de Botton

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

Winston Churchill

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Samuel Johnson

If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.

Confucius

Nothing profits more than self-esteem, grounded on what is just and right.

John Milton