The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennui s, vanish, all duties even.

Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.

Margaret Thatcher

An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.

Charles de Montesquieu

Music is what I must do, business is what I need to do and politics is what I have to do.

Bob Geldof

When one experiences truth, the madness of finding fault with others disappears.

S.N. Goenka

I'll have a full recovery - that's the utmost physically my body has the ability to heal. Then I will push about 20 percent further, through sheer mental tenacity. If you're not prepared for that, go elsewhere.

Anon., Navy Seal: a note he post

The tools are real. The viewer is real, you, the artist, is real and a part of everything you paint. You connect yourself to the viewer by sharing something that is inside of you that connects with something inside of him. All you have as your guide is that you know what moves you. All you have to do it with is a brush, some chemical and canvas, and technique.

Steven Brust

A true gentleman is at a disadvantage in dealing with women. Women are realist, and their tactics are realistic, so no man should be a gentleman where women are concerned unless the women are very, very young. Women admire gentlemen, and sleep with cads.

Louis L'Amour, The Walking Drum

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. If one asks the whence derives the authority of fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justifed merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgements of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence. They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities. One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly.

Albert Einstein

Stupidity is infinitely more fascinating that intelligence. Intelligence has its limits while stupidity has none.

Claude Chabrol

Again, somehow, one saw life, a pure bead. I lifted the pencil again, useless though I knew it to be. But even as I did so, the unmistakable tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and instantly grew stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now knew death. As I looked at the dead moth, this minute wayside triumph of so great a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange.

Virginia Woolf

Commonly they must use their feet for defense whose only weapon is their tongue.

Sir Philip Sidney