To marry a man out of pity is folly; and, if you think you are going to influence the kind of fellow who has never had a chance, poor devil, you are profoundly mistaken. One can only influence the strong characters in life, not the weak; and it is the height of vanity to suppose that you can make an honest man of anyone.

Concerning culture as a process, one would say that it means learning a great many things and then forgetting them and the forgetting is as necessary as the learning.

Albert J. Nock

But the deep background that lies behind and beyond what we call humor is revealed only to the few who, by instinct or by effort, have given thought to it. The world's humor, in its best and greatest sense, is perhaps the highest product of our civilization. Its basis lies in the deeper contrasts offered by life itself: the strange incongruity between our aspiration and our achievement, the eager and fretful anxieties of today that fade into nothingness tomorrow, the burning pain and the sharp sorrow that are softened in the gentle retrospect of time, till as we look back upon the course that has been traversed, we pass in view the panorama of our lives, as people in old age may recall, with mingled tears and smiles, the angry quarrels of their childhood. And here, in its larger aspect, humor is blended with pathos till the two are one, and represent, as they have in every age, the mingled heritage of tears and laughter that is our lot on earth.

Stephen Leacock

Now will I rehearse before you a very ancient Breton Lay. As the tale was told to me, so, in turn, will I tell it over again, to the best of my art and knowledge. Hearken now to my story, its why and its reason.

Marie de France

Medicines are only fit for old people.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Look closely at those who patronize you. Half are unfeeling, half untaught.

Johann von Goethe

In the end no segregationist scheme has withstood the force of a simple idea: equality under law.

Eric Liu

Freedom. And Justice. If you have those two, it covers everything. You must stick to those principles and have the courage of your convictions.

Ian Smith

Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one.

Bertrand Russell

I hate the actor and audience business. An author should be in among the crowd, kicking their shins or cheering them on to some mischief or merriment.

D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

When your work speaks for itself, don

Henry J. Kaiser

Imagine it's 1981. You're an artist, in love with art, smitten with art history. You're also a woman, with almost no mentors to look to art history just isn't that into you. Any woman approaching art history in the early eighties was attempting to enter an almost foreign country, a restricted and exclusionary domain that spoke a private language.

Jerry Saltz

Unfortunately, overall, movies are a conglomerate. People buy and sell people in this business, which can get really ugly.

Laura Dern