The mandate I have received and for which I will speak with heart and head to implement over the next seven years had its four pillars - an inclusive citizenship, equality and participation and respect in a creative society creating an excellence in everything we Irish do.

We're at the crossroads. Down one road is a European centralized bureaucratic socialist welfare system in which politicians and bureaucrats define the future. Down the other road is a proud, solid, reaffirmation of American exceptionalism.

Newt Gingrich

There's nothing worse than someone coming up to me and going Oh God, I really love your hair.

Gavin Rossdale

All ideas come about through some sort of observation. It sparks an attitude some object or emotion causes a reaction in the other person.

Graham Chapman

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

Henry David Thoreau

Whoever named it necking is a poor judge of anatomy.

Groucho Marx

The internet has been a boon and a curse for teenagers.

J. K. Rowling

There are persons who cannot make friends. Who are they? Those who cannot be friends. It is not the want of understanding or good nature, of entertaining or useful qualities, that you complain of: on the contrary, they have probably many points of attraction; but they have one that neutralizes all these --they care nothing about you, and are neither the better nor worse for what you think of them. They manifest no joy at your approach; and when you leave them, it is with a feeling that they can do just as well without you. This is not sullenness, nor indifference, nor absence of mind; but they are intent solely on their own thoughts, and you are merely one of the subjects they exercise them upon. They live in society as in a solitude.

William Hazlitt

I cannot be a materialist -- but Oh, how is it possible that a God who speaks to all hearts can let Belgravia go laughing to a vicious luxury, and Whitechapel cursing to a filthy debauchery -- such suffering, such dreadful suffering -- and shall the short years of Christ's mission atone for it all?

D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

Life is the definition you give to events that occur.

Steve Maraboli

Age does not depend upon years, but upon temperament and health. Some men are born old, and some never grow so.

Tryon Edwards

Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.

Mark Twain