I would rather drudge out my life on a cotton plantation, till the grave opened to give me rest, than to live with an unprincipled master and a jealous mistress.

The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces - in nature, in society, in man himself.

Leon Trotsky

From very early on in my childhood - four, five years old - I felt alien to the human race. I felt very comfortable with thinking I was from another planet, because I felt disconnected - I was very tall and skinny, and I didn't look like anybody else, I didn't even look like any member of my family.

Patti Smith

Science has a simple faith, which transcends utility. Nearly all men of science, all men of learning for that matter, and men of simple ways too, have it in some form and in some degree. It is the faith that it is the privilege of man to learn to understand, and that this is his mission. If we abandon that mission under stress we shall abandon it forever, for stress will not cease. Knowledge for the sake of understanding, not merely to prevail, that is the essence of our being. None can define its limits, or set its ultimate boundaries.

Vannevar Bush

Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.

Jodie Foster

Love's about finding the one person who makes your heart complete. Who makes you a better person than you ever dreamed you could be. Its about looking in the eyes of your wife and knowing all the way to your bones that she's simply the best person you've ever known.

Julia Quinn

The general public has long been divided into two parts those who think science can do anything, and those who are afraid it will.

Dixie Lee Ray

Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.

Frank Zappa

A speech should not just be a sharing of information, but a sharing of yourself.

Ralph Archbold

Under no stretch of imagination can war be regarded as an ethical process yet war, force, terror, and propaganda were the evolutionary means employed to weld the German people into a tribal whole.

Arthur Keith

The path from dreams to success does exist. May you have the vision to find it, the courage to get on to it, and the perseverance to follow it.

Kalpana Chawla

I think complexity is mostly sort of crummy stuff that is there because it's too expensive to change the interface.

Jaron Lanier

Bill Gates is the pope of the personal computer industry. He decides who's going to build.

Larry Ellison