There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practiced in the tricks and delusions of oratory

Do not let circumstances control you. You change your circumstances.

Jackie Chan

He lay back, put his arm over his eyes, and tried to hold onto the anger, because the anger made him feel brave. A brave man could think. A coward couldn't.

Stephen King

Don't be scared by the word authority. Believing things on authority only means believing them because you've been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I haven't seen it myself. I couldn't prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so. The ordinary man believes in the Solar System, atoms, evolution, and the circulation of the blood on authority -because the scientists say so. Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics. We believe them simply because people who did see them have left writings that tell us about them: in fact, on authority. A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life.

C.S. Lewis

One can not be an American by going about saying that one is an American. It is necessary to feel America, like America, love America and then work.

Georgia O'Keeffe

There is eloquence in the tonguelesswind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the rustling of thereeds beside them, which by their inconceivable relation to somethingwithin the soul, awaken the spirits to a dance of breathlessrapture, and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes, likethe enthusiasm of patriotic success, or the voice of one belovedsinging to you alone.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

No lover, if he be of good faith, and sincere, will deny he would prefer to see his mistress dead than unfaithful.

Marquis de Sade

Frank Harris has been received in all the great houses -- once!

Oscar Wilde

Small debts are like small shot they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon of loud noise, but little danger.

Samuel Johnson

Revolutions go not backward.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality.

Richard Courant

The universe is infinite, so there is room for everyone, for every belief, for every custom, and for every desire. You are in competition with no one but yourself.

Stephen Richards

America's political system has evolved over the last 50 years in ways that have enhanced the power of business lobbies.

Al Gore