My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink and sleep, and I could not help doing these things; but there was no life, for there were no wishes the fulfilment of which I could consider reasonable. If I desired anything, I knew in advance that whether I satisfied my desire or not, nothing would come of it. Had a fairy come and offered to fulfil my desires I should not have known what to ask. If in moments of intoxication I felt something which, though not a wish, was a habit left by former wishes, in sober moments I knew this to be a delusion and that there was really nothing to wish for. I could not even wish to know the truth, for I guess of what it consisted. The truth was that life is meaningless.

No idea is so antiquated that it was not once modern. No idea is so modern that it will not some day be antiquated... To seize the flying thought before it escapes us is our only touch with reality.

Ellen Glasgow

I can retain neither respect nor affection for government which has been moving from wrong to wrong in order to defend its immorality

Mahatma Gandhi

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

Francis Bacon

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

Kahlil Gibran

One dull pencil is worth two sharp minds.

Source Unknown

No American worth his salt should go around looking for a root. I advance this in all modesty, as a not unreasonable opinion.

Percy Wynham Lewis

Tucker: Why would you tell me now if it's against the rules?Clara: Because I love you.

Cynthia Hand

Of war and peace the truth just twist, its curfew gull it glides.

Bob Dylan

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel, but do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatched unfledged comrade.

William Shakespeare

His honest, patronizing pride in the good-will and respect of everybody about him was a safeguard even against foolish romance, still more against a lower kind of folly.

George Eliot, Adam Bede

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.

Mahatma Gandhi

After every major conflict - World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the fall of the Soviet Union - what happened was that we ultimately hollowed out the force, largely by doing deep across-the-board cuts.

Leon Panetta