To prefer evil to good is not in human nature and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

Nothing can so pierce the soul as the uttermost sigh of the body.

George Santayana, The Life of Re

Touch not the flute when drums are sounding around; when fools have the word, the wise will be silent.

Johann Gottfried Von Herder

They attack the one man with their hate and their shower of weapons. But he is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and which, exposed to the fury of the winds and beaten against by the waves, endures all the violence

Virgil

Parenting is really just a matter of tracking, of hoping your kids do not get so far ahead you can no longer see their next moves.

Jodi Picoult

Austin sounds a little bit like Aston Martin, which is the type of car James Bond would drive.

Mike Myers

No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish.

John Ruskin

I used to work at a factory where they made hydrants; but you couldn't park anywhere near the place.

Steven Wright

Unless you love someone, nothing else makes any sense.

e. e. cummings

Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts; and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers.

W. H. Auden

The whole point of a sacrifice is that you give up something you never really wanted in the first place. People are doing it around you all the time. They give up their careers, say -- or their beliefs -- or sex.

John Osborne

Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.

Anthony Bourdain

I used to hang out by the food table at parties because you don't have to talk to anybody. If you do then you can talk about the food.

Jennifer Jason Leigh