People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.

Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

Vladimir Nabokov, The Gift

The incorporation of a bank and the powers assumed have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States by the Constitution. They are not among the powers specially enumerated.

Thomas Jefferson

When one has extensively pondered about men, as a career or as a vocation, one sometimes feels nostalgic for primates. At least they do not have ulterior motives.

Albert Camus, The Fall

My friends and my road-fellows, pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress. Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful. Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block. Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking. Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again. Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

Kahlil Gibran

La felicidad es una bendición, pero generalmente es también una conquista.

Paulo Coelho

Doctor, as I believe you would not choose to tell any thing but the truth, you had better tell him, that I am dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire.the him referred to is his friend Colonel Edmondstone

David Hume, Letter From Adam Smi

Sorrows gather around great souls as storms do around mountains but, like them, they break the storm and purify the air of the plain beneath them.

Jean Paul

I want to be very close to someone I respect and admire and have somebody who feels the same way about me.

Richard Bach

Being famous as a writer is like being famous in a village. It's not really any very heady fame.

Peter Carey

Easily mistaken, it is not about a love for adversity, it is about knowing a strength and a faith so great that adversity, in all its adverse manifestations, hardly even exists.

Criss Jami

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

Mark Twain

Don't you wish that we could forget that kiss And see this for what it is That we're not in love

Leslie Feist