One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

Man never legislates, but destinies and accidents, happening in all sorts of ways, legislate in all sorts of ways.

Plato

Very few, if any, first-generation black or white or Asian kids will pursue a Ph.D. They'll pursue the professions for economic security. Many will go to law school and/or business school.

Henry Louis Gates

I have found that the Way of the samurai is death. This means that when you are compelled to choose between life and death, you must quickly choose death.note from Answers.com: used as a military slogan during the early 20th century to encourage soldiers to throw themselves into battle

Yamamoto Tsunetomo

I think things are funny when the character is taking it totally seriously.

Rachel Weisz

After all, the past is our only real guide to the future, and historical analogies are instruments for distilling and organizing the past and converting it to a map by which we can navigate.

Michael Mandelbaum

Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones tend to take care of themselves.

Dale Carnegie

Be one of the crowd? It went against everything a wizard stood for, and a wizard would not stand for anything if he could sit down for it, but even sitting down, you had to stand out.

Terry Pratchett

Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as adversity; but strong and deep ones have two high tides.

David Hare

Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.

Richard Armour

People wandered in for books and conversation. They brought their stories to her, some bound, and some known by heart. She recognized some of the stories as real, and some as fiction. But she honored them all, though she didn't buy every one.

Louise Penny

I'm passing through the world invisibly. Even when people see or speak to me it's as if I didn't exist, as if I had no right to exist. I tread across their lands and they don't see me. I act and act and act and nothing makes any difference in the world. But they touch me.

Orson Scott Card

The food isn't too bad. It's very different from the food that the astronauts ate in the very early days of the space program.

Sally Ride