Life is too short to learn German

But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people--first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy.

Albert Einstein

The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.

Sun Tzu

Jake was close to tears. In that moment he saw the world in its true light, as a place where nothing had ever been any good and nothing of significance done: no art worth a second look, no philosophy of the slightest appositeness, no law but served the state, no history that gave an inkling of how it had been and what had happened. And no love, only egotism, infatuation and lust.

Kingsley Amis

To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.

Queen Elizabeth II

I think the greater responsibility, in terms of morality, is where leadership begins.

Norman Lear

We seek to forget ourselves, to be surprised and to do something without knowing how or why. The way of life is wonderful. It is my abandonment.

Rock Peter

If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.

Lord Chesterfield, "Letter to hi

Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

Alexander Pope

Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness.

Jean de la Bruyere

A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange.... Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.

Aristotle

My rackets are run on strictly American lines and they're going to stay that way.

Al Capone

A lion is much more dreadful to him that never saw him, than he is to his keeper who feedeth him every day. A pitched battle is more frightful and scaring to a new-listed soldier, that never took his place in the field before, nor saw the dreadful countenance of an army ready to engage, nor heard the thundering noise of cannon, and volleys of shot, the shouts of armies, and groans of dying men on every side, than it is to an old soldier who has been used to such things. The like we may observe in seamen, who it may be trembled at first, and now can sing in a storm.Scarce any thing is more necessary for weak and timorous believers to meditate on, than the time of their separation. Our hearts will be apt to start and boggle at the first view of death; but it is good to do by them as men use to do by young colts; ride them up to that which they fright at, and make them smell to it, which is the way to cure them. Look, as bread, says one, is more necessary than other food, so the meditation of death is more necessary than many other meditations. Every time we change our habitations, we should realise therein our great change: our souls must shortly leave this, and be lodged for a longer season in another mansion. When we put off our clothes at night, we have a fit occasion to consider, that we must strip nearer one of these days, and put off, not our clothes only, but the body that wears them too.http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/ipb-e/epl-10/web/flavel-pneumatologia07.html

John Flavel, A Treatise of the S