I've been very blessed in my personal life and in my career and I have never been ungrateful for what I have.

The worse they are the more they see beauty in each other.

Alan Hollinghurst

...although both the Academics and the Pyrrhonian Skeptics say that they believe some things, yet here too the difference between the two philosophies is quite plain. For the word believe has different meanings; it means not to resist but simply to follow without any strong impulse or inclination, as the boy is said to believe his tutor; but sometimes it means to assent to a thing of deliberate choice and with a kind of sympathy due to strong desire, as when the incontinent man believes him who approves of an extravagant mode of life. Since, therefore, Carneades and Cleitomachus declare that a strong inclination accompanies their credence

Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Py

It's incongruous that the older we get, the more likely we are to turn in the direction of religion. Less vivid and intense ourselves, closer to the grave, we begin to conceive of ourselves as immortal.

Edward Hoagland

Three people were at work on a construction site. All were doing the same job, but when each was asked what the job was, the answers varied. Breaking rocks, the first replied. Earning my living, the second said. Helping to build a cathedral, said the third.

Peter Schultz

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Thomas Jefferson

The Beauty which old Greece or Rome Sung, painted, wrought, lies close at home.

John Greenleaf Whittier

To see helpless infancy stretching out her hands, and pouring out her cries in testimony of dependence, without any powers to alarm jealousy, or any guilt to alienate affection, must surely awaken tenderness in every human mind; and tenderness once excited will be hourly increased by the natural contagion of felicity, by the repercussion of communicated pleasure, by the consciousness of dignity of benefaction.

Samuel Johnson, Rambler #148, Au

I shall charm him with such force that when I am done, he will be left lying limply on the ground, trying to remember his own name.

Cassandra Clare

To give and receive love, you have to be in touch with pain, you have to be capable of provoking it and feeling it.

Jeanne Moreau

A biblical false prophet was a servant of the devil attempting to lead people away from the truth.

Walter Martin

Blessed is he who carries within himself a God, an ideal, and who obeys it: ideal of art, ideal of science, ideal of the gospel virtues, therein lie the springs of great thoughts and great actions; they all reflect light from the Infinite.

Louis Pasteur

Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth when perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed nor has anyone who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth any cause to wonder that he does not hear it.

Tacitus