I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

Few men in our history have ever obtained the Presidency by planning to obtain it.

James A. Garfield

Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.

Quintilian

Action is the antidote to despair.

Joan Baez

A good marriage is different to a happy marriage.

Debra Winger

We should speak as the populace but think as the learned.

Sir Edward Coke

Power is not a means; it is an end....Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself....The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy - everything.... No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends....We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science.... There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always - do not forget this, Winston - always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless....If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

George Orwell, 1984

Being sorry is the highest act of selfishness, seeing value only after discarding it.

Doug Horton

Every day the fat woman dies a series of small deaths.

Shelley Bovey

One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune, one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.

Charlotte Bronte

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

Frida Kahlo

I've never had a very quiet voice. I tried in choir to make it smaller, and it just didn't work out. And I listened to a lot of soul music when I was growing up on my own accord. But I was mostly into Mama Cass and Gladys Knight, and they all had big voices too just different than mine.

Beth Ditto

The strongest have their moments of fatigue

Friedrich Nietzsche