Politics is largely governed by sententious platitudes which are devoid of truth

The beauty and completeness of a wild apple tree living its own life in the woods is heartily acknowledged by all those who have been so happy as to form its acquaintance. The fine wild piquancy of its fruit is unrivaled, but in the great question of quantity as human food wild apples are found wanting. Man, therefore, takes the tree from the woods, manures and prunes and grafts,plans and guesses, adds a little of this and that, selects and rejects, until apples of every conceivable size and softness are produced, like nut galls in response to the irritating punctures of insects. Orchard apples are to me the most eloquent words that culture had ever spoken, but they reflect no imperfection upon Nature's spicy crab.

John Muir, Steep Trails, page 15

I loved a woman whose beauty Like the moon moved all the humming heavens to music till the stars with their tiny teeth burst into song and I fell on the ground before her while the sky hardened and she laughed and turned me down softly, I was so young.

Peter Meinke

I went to Washington to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations,

Jonathan Kozol, The Shame of the

There is a huge responsibility on all of us to get England through. It would be one of the biggest disasters in sports history if we blew it and we must make sure it does not happen.

Rio Ferdinand

Death does not concern me. He who takes his first step uses perhaps his last shoes. (Halmalo)

Victor Hugo

I think you have to be willing to take a bullet for somebody if you're going to stand up there, take your vows, and be married to them for the rest of your life.

Blake Shelton

God did not intend the human family to be wafted to heaven on flowery beds of ease.

Frank Knox

The recipe for great art has always been misery and a good bowel movement.

Don Roff

To be social is to be forgiving.

Robert Frost

Oaths are the fossils of piety.

George Santayana

One must travel, to learn. Every day, now, old Scriptural phrases that never possessed any significance for me before, take to themselves a meaning.

Mark Twain

If curiosity killed the cat, it was satisfaction that brought it back.

Holly Black