The problem for me is that I've never actually studied photography, so it's quite a steep learning curve. Cameras these days do so much for you automatically but I still think there's a point where you should actually know the technical side.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

James Madison

The vanishing of languages, like those of living species, is an event that has been repeated many times in history. Localized disasters such as a volcano eruptions, great floods or warfare have played a part, but in the modern era the spread of Europeans--and European diseases--has greatly accelerated the pace of destruction. Local or regional language communities may be overpowered by a dominant metropolitan language, which increases the pressure to neglect the ancestral tongue in favor of the new one and is seen as the key to prospering in the dominant culture. Children may be forbidden to use their mother tongue in the classroom, as has occurred to many groups, including the Welsh, Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians. Speakers of minority languages have been forcibly relocatedand combined with speakers of other languages, as happened when Africans were brought to the Americas as slaves. Practices such as these have made Native American languages the most imperiled of any on the earth.The death of a language is not only a tragedy for those directly involved but also an irretrievable cultural loss for the rest of the world. Through language, each culture expresses a unique worldview. Thus, any effort to preserve linguistic variety implies a deep respect for the positive values of other cultures.

Rodger Doyle, Scientific America

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

Bertrand Russell

Such indeed is the superior longevity of the fair females of Surinam, compared to that of the males (owing chiefly, as I said, to their excesses of all sorts) that I have frequently known wives who have buried four husbands, but never met a man in this country who had survived two wives.

Captain J. G. Stedman

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.

Seneca (Seneca the Elder)

You see, you all start with the premise that democracy is some good. I don't think it's worth a damn. I think Churchill is right, the only thing to be said for democracy is that there is nothing else that's any better, and therefore he used to say, Tyranny tempered by assassination, but lots of assassination. People say, If the Congress were more representative of the people it would be better. I say the Congress is too damn representative. It's just as stupid as the people are; just as uneducated, just as dumb, just as selfish. You know the Congress is a perfect example, and created to be a perfect example.http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/acheson.htm

Dean Acheson, interview with The

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

William Blake, Jerusalem, 1820

I believe we can incentivize more affordable health care in general by better regulating insurance and creating meaningful competition for health care services.

Amy Klobuchar

Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

A fighter, a real strong fighter, should always look dignified and calm, and I believe that any expression of aggression is an expression of weakness. A strong person will not be nervous and will not express aggression towards his opponent. He will be confident in his abilities and his training; then he will face the fight calm and balanced.

Fedor Emelianenko

At a time when efforts are being made to eradicate discrimination between the sexes in the search for social equality and justice, the differences between the sexes are being rediscovered.

Carol Gilligan

I'm not one of those famous people flying round the world emoting over every catastrophe. I'm too feeble.

Kristin Scott Thomas