The ordinary reverence, the reverence defined and explained by the dictionary, costs nothing. Reverence for one's own sacred things--parents, religion, flag, laws and respect for one's own beliefs--these are feelings which we cannot even help. They come natural to us; they are involuntary, like breathing. There is no personal merit in breathing. But the reverence which is difficult, and which has personal merit in it, is the respect which you pay, without compulsion, to the political or religious attitude of a man whose beliefs are not yours. You can't revere his gods or his politics, and no one expects you to do that, but you could respect his belief in them if you tried hard enough; and you could respect him, too, if you tried hard enough. But it is very, very difficult; it is next to impossible, and so we hardly ever try. If the man doesn't believe as we do, we say he is a crank, and that settles it. I mean it does nowadays, because we can't burn him.http://www.twainquotes.com/Reverence.html

As Sarah watched them (Abraham and Isaac) move briskly along, she thought of the whole journey behind her. Her childhood in the Ur-of-the North, the temple of Asherah, her father's house, the Euphrates in flood and in a dry season. She thought of Abraham arriving with his extravagant dowry of impossibly large herds, and then of those early years as they watched the drought deplete their animals and their hope. The journey to Egypt, and the fear she felt when they were told to lie about who she was. She thought of Pharaoh and of Sehtepibre, of the great game they weere playing on the magnificient stage of the most ancient and lofty kingdom in the world - and how petty and mean it turned out to be. She thought of Hagar in those early years together, when Sarah thought of her as almost a friend, they grew so close. The nastiness she set aside; there was no reason to dwell on that. But two sons had been born to Abraham, one by each of these women. That made them sisters, of a kind, even if they could not be friends. And thinking of sisters reminded her of Qira, and her tragic blindness to anything that mattered. Qira was almost as blessed as I was, thought Sarah, but she never knew it, and ketp trying to get joy from those who had none to give, and rejecting it from the only ones who knew how it could be obtained. And she died because she couldn't let go of the very things that the dead always leave behind, and couldn't hold to the only things that the dead can carry with them. The love of a good man for a good woman. The love of good friends for each other. The love of parents for children, and children for parents. The love of brothers and sisters. The memory of joy and grief, which all becomes joy when enough time has passed. This is the treasure that I have won through all the years of my journey through this life, thought Sarah. And every bit of it I'll take with me beyond the grave. I'll meet God then, Abraham promises I will, and I will take all these treasures and lay them out before his feet, for God can see

Orson Scott Card

All German women are beautiful.

Heidi Klum

If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain.

Andre Maurois

American science is much more organized, much more hierarchical than British science has been.

Martin Fleischmann

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

I point out truths when I see them, Brightlord Sadeas. Each man has his place. Mine is to make insults. Yours is to be in-sluts.

Brandon Sanderson

Remaining vigilant toward this ever-present threat means constantly learning how better to protect ourselves. But primarily it reminds us that we must fight and win the war on terror, so that we do not have to fight it here in America.

Mark Kennedy

Of present fame think little, and of future less the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.

Charles Caleb Colton

My mom, Emilie, always taught me to think hard about marriage.

Alyson Hannigan

Success didn't spoil me, I've always been insufferable.

Fran Lebowitz

I hate to paint portraits! I hope never to paint another portrait in my life. Portraiture may be all right for a man in his youth, but after forty I believe that manual dexterity deserts one, and, besides, the color-sense is less acute. Youth can better stand the exactions of a personal kind that are inseparable from portraiture. I have had enough of it.

John Singer Sargent

The last sound on the worthless earth will be two human beings trying to launch a homemade spaceship and already quarreling about where they are going next.

William Faulkner