Some men fish all their lives without knowing it is not really the fish they are after.

In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it is only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every administrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark, holding on with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding on to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and the ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves independently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead of appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant, useless, feeble man.

Leo Tolstoy

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Do but take care to express yourself in a plain, easy Manner, in well-chosen, significant and decent Terms, and to give a harmonious and pleasing Turn to your Periods: study to explain your Thoughts, and set them in the truest Light, labouring as much as possible, not to leave them dark nor intricate, but clear and intelligible.

Miguel de Cervantes, Preface to

You don't always win your battles, but it's good to know you fought.

Marjorie Holmes

Lawyers enjoy a little mystery, you know. Why, if everybody came forward and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth straight out, we should all retire to the workhouse.

Dorothy L. Sayers

The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life of constant and eager observation.

Walter Pater

Let us not burden our remembrances with a heaviness that's gone

William Shakespeare

No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.

General Douglas MacArthur

'I Know You Care' is about my dad. And I haven't seen him for a long, long time. And my parents divorced when I was really young. And I guess I just wanted a - it was my way of saying that I wasn't bitter or angry anymore. I was just sad and just felt like something was missing.

Ellie Goulding

Make the choice adventurous stranger, strike the bell and bide the danger or wonder 'till it drives you mad what would have happened if you had.

C.S. Lewis

People want to forget the impossible. It makes their world safer.

Neil Gaiman

Coming to terms with the fact that my marriage was a failure was devastating and very difficult.

Sarah McLachlan