Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.

You were right to come to see a dying man. It is right that these moments should have witnesses. Everyone has his dream; I would like to live till dawn, but I know I have less than three hours left. It will be night, but no matter. Dying is simple. It does not take daylight. So be it: I will die by starlight

Victor Hugo

Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.

Oscar Wilde

Human improvement is from within outward.

James A. Froude

Life never end when you are in it.

Lemony Snicket

Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world Like one great garden show'd, And thro' the wreaths of floating dark up-curl'd, Rare sunrise flow'd. And Freedom rear'd in that august sunrise Her beautiful bold brow, When rites and forms before his burning eyes Melted like snow.

Alfred Tennyson

We sincerely ask the Beijing authorities across the Strait to view the election result from a positive perspective, to accept the democratic decision of the Taiwanese people.

Chen Shui-bian

Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offences; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little.

Henry David Thoreau

I really enjoyed hanging out with some of the teachers. This one chemistry teacher, she liked hanging out. I liked making explosives. We would stay after school and blow things up.

Maya Lin

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.

Groucho Marx

It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated...it is finished when it surrenders.

Ben Stein

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.

Aristotle

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.

Nikola Tesla