The reason I never give up hope is because everything is so basically hopeless.

I am saying voluntarily that I have sung for almost every religious group in the country, from Jewish and Catholic, and Presbyterian and Holy Rollers and Revival Churches. I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, make me less of an American.

Pete Seeger, from testimony for

There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know.

Ambrose Bierce

Do not judge your neighbor until you walk two moons in his moccasins.

American Indian Proverb, Cheyenn

I'm not just a boy toy. I have feelings and dreams like anybody else.

Jon Stewart

...It sounded like a dragon breathing in time with me, like I had this pet dragon who was cuddled up next to me and cared enough about me to time his breaths to mine.

John Green

Men are often biased in their judgment on account of their sympathy and their interests.

George William Norris

Nothing can atone for the lack of modesty without which beauty is ungraceful and wit detestable.

Richard Steele

Let hope inspire you, but let not idealism blind you. Proverb Don't look back, you can never look back.

Don Henley

Speak not too well of one who scarce will know himself transfigured in its roseate glow; Say kindly of him what is, chiefly, true, remembering always he belongs to you; Deal with him as a truant, if you will, But claim him, keep him, call him brother still!

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.

Thomas Aquinas

O loss of sight, of thee I most complain! Blind among enemies, O worse than chains, dungeon or beggary, or decrepit age! Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, and all her various objects of delight annulled, which might in part my grief have eased. Inferior to the vilest now become of man or worm; the vilest here excel me, they creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed to daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong, within doors, or without, still as a fool, in power of others, never in my own; scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.

John Milton

If people insist that honor is dearer than life itself, what they really mean is that existence and well-being are as nothing compared with other people's opinions. Of course, this may be only an exaggerated way of stating the prosaic truth that reputation, that is, the opinion others have of us, is indispensable if we are to make any progress in the world.

Arthur Schopenhauer, Position, I