All men and women are born, live suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.

I went to interview some of these early Jewish colonial zealots written off in those days as mere 'fringe' elements and found that they called themselves or it sounded just as bad in English 'The Bloc of the Faithful.' Why not just say 'Party of God' and have done with it? At least they didn't have the nerve to say that they stole other people's land because their own home in Poland or Belarus had been taken from them. They said they took the land because god had given it to them from time immemorial. In the noisome town of Hebron, where all of life is focused on a supposedly sacred boneyard in a dank local cave, one of the world's less pretty sights is that of supposed students toting submachine guns and humbling the Arab inhabitants. When I asked one of these charmers where he got his legal authority to be a squatter, he flung his hand, index finger outstretched, toward the sky.

Christopher Hitchens

I am not a great cook, I am not a great artist, but I love art, and I love food, so I am the perfect traveller.

Michael Palin

What a familiarity with the construction of Turing test bots had begun to show me was that we fail - again and again- to actually be human with other humans, so maddeningly much of the time.

Brian Christian

The man with toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

George Bernard Shaw

He enjoys much who is thankful for little.

Thomas Secker

This grace of God is a very great, strong, mighty and active thing. It does not lie asleep in the soul. Grace hears, leads, drives, draws, changes, works all in man, and lets itself be distinctly felt and experienced. It is hidden, but its works are evident.

Martin Luther King Jr.

The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.

Henrik Ibsen

For guys playing sports at a high level, for money, I can't put my finger on it, but in a man's world of sport, there is something visceral to beating another man.

Kurt Russell

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given, and transmitted from the past.

Karl Marx, Letter to Joseph Wede

I like to abide by the seasons and let the natural flavor in food speak for itself. I use quick cooking techniques of high heat with very little fat, such as quick saute or wok stir-frying.

Cat Cora

To become properly acquainted with a truth, we must first have disbelieved it, and disputed against it.

Novalis

If we live truly, we shall see truly.

Ralph Waldo Emerson