It occurred to me that a lot of beauty has to do with believing it yourself. That half of what we see is just the way it is presented.

Perhaps there are just some things you leave behind when you choose a new life.

Andrew Davidson

I strove with none; for none was worth my strife.

Walter Savage Landor

Islam and Christianity promise eternal paradise to the faithful. And that is a powerful opiate, certainly, the hope of a better life to come. But there's a Sufi story that challenges the notion that people believe only because they need an opiate. Rabe'a al-Adiwiyah, a great woman saint of Sufism, was seem running through the streets of her hometown, Basra, carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she answered, 'I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven of fear of hell, but because He is God.

John Green

It is not enough to prove something, one has also to seduce or elevate people to it. That is why the man of knowledge should learn how to speak his wisdom: and often in such a way that it sounds like folly!

Friedrich Nietzsche

Think of submitting our measure to the advice of politicians! I would as soon submit the subject of the equality of a goose to a fox.

Anna Howard Shaw

The priesthood in many ways is the ultimate closet in Western civilization, where gay people particularly have hidden for the past two thousand years.

John Spong

Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism and our second great philosopher was an agnostic.

Hu Shih

He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes.

Herman Melville

I found thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking thee without that wert within.

Saint Augustine of Hippo

My best background is, like, smash opponents. I all the time go forward. I all the time try to take down somebody. Make him give up. This is my style, you know. This is what I do all my life.

Khabib Nurmagomedov

Fact is Our Lord knew all about the power of money: He gave capitalism a tiny niche in His scheme of things, He gave it a chance, He even provided a first installment of funds. Can you beat that? It's so magnificent. God despises nothing. After all, if the deal had come off, Judas would probably have endowed sanatoriums, hospitals, public libraries or laboratories.

Georges Bernanos

Who shall I shoot? You choose. Now, listen very carefully: where's your coffee? You've got coffee, haven't you? C'mon, everyone's got coffee! Spill the beans!

Terry Pratchett