Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart's desire the other is to get it.

What difference does it make, whether we keep our silence because force us or because we're afraid they might force us?

Orson Scott Card

There is a form of laughter that springs from the heart, heard every day in the merry voice of childhood, the expression of a laughter -- loving spirit that defies analysis by the philosopher, which has nothing rigid or mechanical in it, and totally without social significance. Bubbling spontaneously from the heart of child or man. Without egotism and full of feeling, laughter is the music of life.

William Osler

Seek not good from without: seek it within yourselves, or you will never find it.

Bertha von Suttner

It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes.

Thomas Paine

It is just as important that business keep out of government as that government keep out of business.

Herbert Hoover

Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love; these are their universal characteristics.

Lord Chesterfield, Letter to his

Will an Iraq war make our Al Qaeda problem worse? Not likely.

Christopher Hitchens

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.You appear to be astonished, he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.To forget it!You see, he explained, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.But the Solar System! I protested.What the deuce is it to me? he interrupted impatiently: you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.This is Watson describing one of his earliest conversations with Sherlock Holmeshttp://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/DoyScar.html

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study

I hope I presented what I felt the woman seemed to be about, but I couldn't give any reason as to why she remained in the relationship other than that their relationship was very special.

Jenny Agutter

A rich man is either a scoundrel or the heir of a scoundrel.

Proverb

I've seen people with a tremendous amount of educational background in the field not turn out to be terribly good actors, and I've seen people with no education in the field turn out to be people that I admire quite a bit.

Ron Silver

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.

Ralph Waldo Emerson