The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope.

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.

Thomas Jefferson

Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule.

Jefferson Davis

Once thoroughly our own knowledge ceases to give us pleasure.

John Ruskin

You can know all there is to know about life and mankind, but what do you really know about yourself?

Yasmina Khadra

No nation ancient or modern ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing, or publishing their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves.

John P. Zenger

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.

Rachel Carson

There is a proverbial saying chiefly concerned with warning against too closely calculating the numerical value of un-hatched chicks.

Neil Gaiman

The balance of private good and general welfare is at the bottom of civilized morals but the morals of the Heroic Age are founded on individuality, and on nothing else.

Lascelles Abercrombie

Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.

Mark Twain

You can't wake up one day and say 'I'm for gay marriage,' and wake up the next day and say 'I'm against it.' Wake up one day and say, 'I'm pro-choice,' and the next day wake up and say, 'I'm pro-life.' There's no credibility there.

Roger Stone

Quality isn't something that can be argued into an article or promised into it. It must be put there. If it isn't put there, the finest sales talk in the world won't act as a substitute.

C. G. Campbell

A young man when he enters society must be preserved from vanity rather than from sensibility; he succumbs rather to the tastes of others than to his own, and self-love is responsible for more libertines than love. Self-love makes more libertines than love.

Jean Jacques Rousseau