Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer and then you find there is nothing in it

The vanishing of languages, like those of living species, is an event that has been repeated many times in history. Localized disasters such as a volcano eruptions, great floods or warfare have played a part, but in the modern era the spread of Europeans--and European diseases--has greatly accelerated the pace of destruction. Local or regional language communities may be overpowered by a dominant metropolitan language, which increases the pressure to neglect the ancestral tongue in favor of the new one and is seen as the key to prospering in the dominant culture. Children may be forbidden to use their mother tongue in the classroom, as has occurred to many groups, including the Welsh, Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians. Speakers of minority languages have been forcibly relocatedand combined with speakers of other languages, as happened when Africans were brought to the Americas as slaves. Practices such as these have made Native American languages the most imperiled of any on the earth.The death of a language is not only a tragedy for those directly involved but also an irretrievable cultural loss for the rest of the world. Through language, each culture expresses a unique worldview. Thus, any effort to preserve linguistic variety implies a deep respect for the positive values of other cultures.

Rodger Doyle, Scientific America

I absolutely adore Thanksgiving. It's the only holiday I insist on making myself.

Ina Garten

If words are the truth, what is living for?

Marty Rubin

As kids we didn't complain about being poor we talked about how rich we were going to be and made moves to get the lifestyle we aspired to by any means we could. And as soon as we had a little money, we were eager to show it.

Jay-Z

To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature... If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in.

Richard Feynman

All the worlds a stage,And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurses arms. Then the whining school-boy, with his satchelAnd shining morning face, creeping like snailUnwillingly to school. And then the lover,Sighing like furnace, with a woeful balladMade to his mistress eyebrow. Then a soldier,Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,Seeking the bubble reputationEven in the cannons mouth. And then the justice,In fair round belly with good capon lind,With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,Full of wise saws and modern instances;And so he plays his part. The sixth age shiftsInto the lean and slipperd pantaloon dotard,With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,His youthful hose, well savd, a world too wideFor his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,Turning again toward childish treble, pipesAnd whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,That ends this strange eventful history,Is second childishness and mere oblivion,Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

William Shakespeare

Tomorrow do thy worst, I have lived today.

John Dryden

It's weird to say, but every time I look at my daughter and I see this little living breathing thing that came from me, that represents all of the hopes and dreams that I would want for her, I see a miracle.

Josh Gad

Few sometimes may know, when thousands err.

John Milton

A man surprised is half beaten.

Thomas Fuller

A lot of young girls think that the opposite of fake is rudeness. And just as ugly as fake is, so is saying whatever is on your mind because it's the truth.

Tyra Banks

Clothes don't tell the character of the man, but they just as well talk for him as against him.

Source Unknown