I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.

For nothing can seem foul to those that win.

William Shakespeare

Talent alone won't make you a success. Neither will being in the right place at the right time, unless you are ready. The most important question is: Are your ready?

Johnny Carson

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

is what makes moments caught up in the immanence of return suddenly appear as ends. In every other system, don't forget, these moments are viewed as means: Every moral system proclaims that each moment of life ought to be motivated. Return unmotivates the moment and frees life of ends.

Georges Bataille

An isolated outbreak of virginity is a rash on the face of society. It arouses only pity from the married, and embarrassment from the single.

Charlotte Bingham

I never get tired of smiling. I'm just the kind of guy who likes to smile.

Jason Ritter

In the United States there's a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.

Umberto Eco

To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.

Gelett Burgess

Only a brave person is willing to honestly admit, and fearlessly to face, what a sincere and logical mind discovers.

Rodan of Alexandria

It is not right, my fellow-countrymen, you who know very well all the crimes committed in our name, it

JeanPaul Sartre, from the prefac

For knowledge to become wisdom, and for the soul to grow, the soul must be rooted in God: and it is through prayer that there comes to us that which is the strength of our strength, and the virtue of our virtue, the Holy Spirit.

William Mountford

They, that unnamed they, they've knocked me down but I got up. I always get up -- and I swear when I went down quite often I took the fall; nothing moves a mountain but itself. They, I've long ago named them me.

Gregory Corso