(Just to give you an idea, Proust's reply was 'To be separated from Mama.') I think that the lowest depth of misery ought to be distinguished from the highest pitch of anguish. In the lower depths come enforced idleness, sexual boredom, and/or impotence. At the highest pitch, the death of a friend or even the fear of the death of a child.

A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus.

Thomas Carlyle

Berlioz says nothing in his music, but he says it magnificently.

James G. Huneker

Everyone who achieves success in a great venture, solves each problem as they came to it. They helped themselves. And they were helped through powers known and unknown to them at the time they set out on their voyage. They keep going regardless of the obstacles they met.

W. Clement Stone

There used to be this feeling under Eisenhower and Kennedy and Roosevelt and Truman that government was a solution. Trust in the presidency fell precipitously under Johnson - real lows. And it's never come back. It's a trend that, if you're liberal, is really discouraging.

Robert Caro

A lot of people would say 'sexy' is about the body. But to me, 'sexy' is a woman with confidence. I admire women who have very little fear.

Allegra Versace

Would you live with ease, do what you ought, and not what you please.

Benjamin Franklin

Parents are key when it comes to keeping kids off drugs. Good parenting is the best anti-drug we have.

Mel Carnahan

The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.

Thomas Jefferson

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.

Henry David Thoreau

You are beautiful. Your beauty, just like your capacity for life, happiness, and success, is immeasurable.

Steve Maraboli

I'm really not interested in other people's opinions, because I think frankly most of those opinions are either misinformed and adding to this endless ball of hot air we have in our society where everyone thinks their opinion is valuable and sacred and what counts.

H. G. Bissinger

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower. Drives my green age that blasts the roots of trees is my destroyer.

Dylan Thomas