One cannot make plans to acquire happiness; it has to be unbidden and spontaneous only than it can give us peace.

When a load of bricks, dumped on a corner lot, can arrange themselves into a house; when a handful of springs and screws and wheels, emptied on a desk, can gather themselves into a watch, then and not until then will it seem sensible, to some of us at least, to believe that all these thousands or millions of worlds could have been created, balanced and set to revolving in their separate orbits -- all without any directing intelligence at all.

Bruce Barton

Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in gold, and you had put it in the hands of Blondin to carry across the Niagara River on a rope, would you shake the cable, or keep shouting out to himBlondin, stand up a little straighterBlondin, stoop a little morego a little fasterlean a little more to the northlean a little more to the south? No, you would hold your breath as well as your tongue, and keep your hands off until he was safe over. The Government are carrying an immense weight. Untold treasures are in their hands. They are doing the very best they can. Dont badger them. Keep silence, and well get you safe across.

Abraham Lincoln

I can find my biography in every fable that I read

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is spectacular. From about five minutes in, when we knew for sure that we were going to have the weather to go, the smile on my face just got bigger and bigger, and I was just beaming through the whole launch. I mean, it is just an amazing ride.

Chris Hadfield

He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him).

George Orwell

Islam is at once the most and the least interesting of the world's monotheisms. It builds upon its primitive Jewish and Christian predecessors, selecting a chunk here and a shard there, and thus if these fall, it partly falls also.

Christopher Hitchens

Earlier in my life, I performed a lot of music. Some of it because I felt it was a demonstration, or a representation of certain intellectual concepts that were very exciting and important.

Michael Tilson Thomas

San Francisco businesses face many challenges, including high rents, regulatory burdens, and the rising cost of workers compensation insurance and employee health plans.

Gavin Newsom

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

G. K. Chesterton

There are always two choices. Two paths to take. One is easy. And its only reward is that it's easy.

Source Unknown

My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the hell she is.

Ellen DeGeneres

I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men... in receiving from the people the sacred trust confided to my illustrious predecessor.

Martin Van Buren