The most important influence in my childhood was my father.

All is amiss. Love is dying, faith's defying, heart's denying.

Richard Barnfield

Is there any conflict between science and religion? There is no conflict in the mind of God, but often there is conflict in the minds of men.

Henry B. Eyring

If I had some idea of a finish line, don't you think I would have crossed it years ago?

Richard M. DeVos

The big shift in approach on education that we are taking - which is different from what happened before - is that we trust teachers and we trust heads.

Michael Gove

There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being somebody, to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation. One can either see or be seen.

John Updike, SelfConsciousness:

When war comes, two things happen - profits go way, way up and all perishables go way, way down. There becomes a market for them.

Steven Spielberg

Patton was living in the Dark Ages. Soldiers were peasants to him. I didn't like that attitude.

Bill Mauldin

Now, nothing should be able to harm a man except himself. Nothing should be able to rob a man at all. What a man really has, is what is in him. What is outside of him should be a matter of no importance.

Oscar Wilde

Security is when everything is settled. When nothing can happen to you. Security is the denial of life.

Germaine Greer

Men do not learn much from the lessons of history and that is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Aldous Huxley

In each age men of genius undertake the ascent. From below, the world follows them with their eyes. These men go up the mountain, enter the clouds, disappear, reappear, People watch them, mark them. They walk by the side of precipices. They daringly pursue their road. See them aloft, see them in the distance; they are but black specks. On they go. The road is uneven, its difficulties constant. At each step a wall, at each step a trap. As they rise the cold increases. They must make their ladder, cut the ice and walk on it., hewing the steps in haste. A storm is raging. Nevertheless they go forward in their madness. The air becomes difficult to breath. The abyss yawns below them. Some fall. Others stop and retrace their steps; there is a sad weariness. The bold ones continue. They are eyed by the eagles; the lightning plays about them: the hurricane is furious. No matter, they persevere.

Victor Hugo