The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.

I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They're too much fun.

Babe Ruth

There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.

George Bernard Shaw

Natasha, with a vigorous turn from her heel on to her toe, walked over to the middle of the room and stood still... Natasha took the first note, her throat swelled, her bosom heaved, a serious expression came into her face. She was thinking of no one and of nothing at that moment, and from her smiling mouth poured forth notes, those notes that anyone can produce at the same intervals, and hold for the same length of time, yet a thousand times leave us cold, and the thousand and first time they set us thrilling and weeping.

Leo Tolstoy

After a number of years dating, we decided we were good partners.

Melinda Gates

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, Hid in this silent, dull retreat,Untouched thy honied blossoms blow,Unseen thy little branches greet;...No roving foot shall crush thee here,...No busy hand provoke a tear.By Nature's self in white arrayed,She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,And planted here the gaurdian shade,And sent soft waters murmuring by;...Thus quietly thy summer goes,...Thy days declinging to repose.Smit with those charms, that must decay,I grieve to see your future doom;They died--nor were those flowers more gay,The flowers that did in Eden bloom;...Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power...Shall leave no vestige of this flower.From morning suns and evenign dewsAt first thy little being came:If nothing once, you nothing lose,For when you die you are the same;...The space between, is but an hour,...The frail duration of a flower.

Philip Freneau, The Wild HoneySu

Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wander whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.

Soren Kierkegaard

Not many appreciate the ultimate power and potential usefulness of basic knowledge accumulated by obscure, unseen investigators who, in a lifetime of intensive study, may never see any practical use for their findings but who go on seeking answers to the unknown without thought of financial or practical gain.

Eugenie Clark

Voting is a civic sacrament.

Theodore Hesburgh

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life.

John Burroughs

Dr. Einstein was not successful in school, but he found something in the air from his own imagination and his own brain power, and look what he did.

Eartha Kitt

To the illumined man or woman, a clod of dirt, a stone, and gold are the same.

Bhagavad Gita

None of us is guaranteed against failure or corruption of any kind witness what's going on in the world in this moment, the follies of human nature and the failures of human nature.

Morris West