Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have, and it's often only found in moments of truth.

For the perfect idler, for the passionate observer it becomes an immense source of enjoyment to establish his dwelling in the throng, in the ebb and flow, the bustle, the fleeting and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel at home anywhere; to see the world, to be at the very center of the world, and yet to be unseen of the world, such are some of the minor pleasures of those independent, intense and impartial spirits, who do not lend themselves easily to linguistic definitions. The observer is a prince enjoying his incognito wherever he goes.

Charles Baudelaire

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

Josh Billings

Whatever has overstepped its due bounds is always in a state of instability.

Seneca (Seneca the Elder)

Trust me that as I ignore all law to help the slave, so will I ignore it all to protect an enslaved woman.

Susan B. Anthony

Do your duty, that is best; leave unto the Lord the rest.

David O. McKay

I have lived much of my life among molecules. They are good company.

George Wald

The fantastical idea of virtue and the public good being a sufficient security to the state against the commission of crimes...was never mine. It is only the sanguinary hue of our penal laws which I meant to object to. Punishments I know are necessary, and I would provide them strict and inflexible, but proportioned to the crime. Death might be inflicted for murder and perhaps for treason, [but I] would take out of the description of treason all crimes which are not such in their nature. Rape, buggery, etc., punish by castration. All other crimes by working on high roads, rivers, gallies, etc., a certain time proportioned to the offence... Laws thus proportionate and mild should never be dispensed with. Let mercy be the character of the lawgiver, but let the judge be a mere machine. The mercies of the law will be dispensed equally and impartially to every description of men; those of the judge or of the executive power will be the eccentric impulses of whimsical, capricious designing man.

Thomas Jefferson

The functions of these elders, therefore, determine the power of the people for a representative is one chosen by others to do in their name what they are entitled to do in their own persons or rather to exercise the powers which radically inhere in those for whom they act.

Charles Hodge

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. books are well written or badly written. That is all.

Oscar Wilde

Thus, after finishing high school, I started with high expectations and enthusiasm to study chemistry at the famous Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Richard Ernst

It seems that when you get to a certain age you almost give yourself permission to misbehave and say what you think. People allow it, with very old people.

Julie Walters

I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them. I was surrounded by extraordinary women in my life who taught me about quiet strength and dignity.

Michelle Obama