I like to be bought flowers and taken out for dinner. I like a man to be a gentleman. I don't like to be treated as if I am brainless. I like to be respected and to give respect.

Marriage, for a woman at least, hampers the two things that made life to me glorious - friendship and learning.

Jane Harrison

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?

Leonardo da Vinci

'At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,' said the gentleman, taking up a pen, 'it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. ... We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices.'

Charles Dickens

Growing up happens when you start having things you look back on and wish you could change -Clary Fray

Cassandra Clare

Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other.

Honore de Balzac

Mom was the greatest influence of my childhood. She wanted to save me from the vice, lust, and drinking that was all about me.

Ethel Waters

Language always betrays us, tells the truth when we want to lie, and dissolves into formlessness when we would most like to be precise.

Jeanette Winterson

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple pity that will not forsake us

George Eliot

A vacant mind invites dangerous inmates, as a deserted mansion tempts wandering outcasts to enter and take up their abode in its desolate apartments.

Nicholas Hilliard

Our power is in our ability to decide.

Richard Buckminster Fuller

A woman who is convinced that she deserves to accept only the best challenges herself to give the best. Then she is living phenomenally.

Maya Angelou

A person of intellect without energy added to it, is a failure.

Sebastian Roch Nicolas Chamfort