The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence.

Unmoved though Witlings sneer and Rivals rail, Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail. He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain. With merit needless, and without it vain. In Reason, Nature, Truth, he dares to trust: Ye Fops, be silent: and ye Wits, be just.

Samuel Johnson

I say that the true artist-seer, the heavenly fool who can and does produce beauty, is mainly dazzled to death by his own scruples, the blinding shapes and colors of his own sacred human conscience.

J. D. Salinger

We were both very much the same. We were both very impulsive. We both loved life. We both loved shopping. We both had a love of clothes, obviously, because he was the designer that I kind of wore forever and ever.

Elton John

Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted and heaven crammed with these phantoms.

Robert Green Ingersoll

People had this image of the Jacksons as the perfect American family and I destroyed that image. But what people have to understand is writing that book was very healing for me.

LaToya Jackson

If one is not virtuous he becomes vicious.

Christian Nevell Bovee

You demand respect and you'll get it. First of all, you give respect.

Mary J. Blige

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.

Mark Twain

You don't have to be stupid to be a Christian, ... but it probably helps.

Ambrose Bierce

The vast upheaval of the World War set in motion forces that will either destroy civilization or raise mankind to undreamed of heights of human welfare and prosperity.

Arthur Henderson

Morality sticks faster when presented in brief sayings than when presented in long discourse.

Immermann

I've always been inspired by artists who have shown musical and intellectual curiosity and the courage to take risks.

Renee Fleming