Renouncement: the heroism of mediocrity.

Family life was wonderful. The streets were bleak. The playgrounds were bleak. But home was always warm. My mother and father had a great relationship. I always felt 'safe' there.

Robert Cormier

Every morning I woke in dread, waiting for the day nurse to go on her rounds and announce from the list of names in her hand whether or not I was for shock treatment, the new and fashionable means of quieting people and of making them realize that orders are to be obeyed and floors are to be polished without anyone protesting and faces are to be made to be fixed into smiles and weeping is a crime.

Janet Frame

The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Perseverance gives power to weakness, and opens to poverty the world's wealth. It spreads fertility over the barren landscape, and buds the choicest flowers and fruits spring up and flourish in the desert abode of thorns and briars.

Samuel G. Goodrich

Who is wise? He that learns from every One. Who is powerful? He that governs his Passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.

Benjamin Franklin

I am convinced that the French could not win the war because the internal political situation in Vietnam, weak and confused, badly weakened their military position. I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bao Dai was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for. As one Frenchman said to me, What Vietnam needs is another Syngman Rhee, regardless of all the difficulties the presence of such a personality would entail.

Dwight D Eisenhower

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

Johann von Goethe

Was there ever such stuff as great as part of Shakespeare? Only one must not say so! But what think you? - What? - Is there not sad stuff? What? - What?

George III

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.

Thomas Merton

The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in taking hold of it.

H.G. Wells

Fear is, I believe, a most effective tool in destroying the soul of an individual - and the soul of a people.

Anwar Sadat

The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.

Joseph Addison