Reflection is the business of man; a sense of his state is his first duty: but who remembereth himself in joy? Is it not in mercy then that sorrow is allotted unto us?

The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.

Napoleon Bonaparte

How a sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! He is his own exclusive object. Supreme selfishness is inculcated in him as his only duty,

Charles Lamb

Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.

Desmond Tutu

The memory, experiencing and re-experiencing, has such power over one's mere personal life, that one has merely lived.

Rebecca West

As for myself: I had come to the conclusion that there was nothing sacred about myself or any human being, that we were all machines, doomed to collide and collide and collide. For want of anything better to do, we became fans of collisions. Sometimes I wrote well about collisions, which meant I was a writing machine in good repair. Sometimes I wrote badly, which meant I was a writing machine in bad repair. I no more harbored sacredness than did a Pontiac, a mousetrap, or a South Bend Lathe.

Kurt Vonnegut

A seared conscience is one whose warning voice has been suppressed and perverted habitually, so that eventually instead of serving as a guide, it only confirms the person in his premeditatedly evil course.

Robert J. Little

Sex is excitement, seeks satisfaction and soon loses interest - selfishness. Making love is passionate, fulfilling and does not look for an end - selflessness.

Barry Long

That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.

Gaston Bachelard

Keep your private life private. Be open to suggestions from different people. And just be nice. I have heard stories about people who are just plain rude to the press or fans.

Michelle Trachtenberg

Nobody with an IQ higher than emergency-room temperature could ever believe that 'death panels' would be appointed to nudge the elderly toward euthanasia. Yet for idle entertainment, it's hard to beat Sarah Palin's ignorant nattering on the subject.

Carl Hiaasen

Sometimes it made her want to put her fist through glass; other times, it made her cry a river.

Jodi Picoult