The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man--yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.

Marcus Aurelius

I often found myself prefering the company of people outside my congregation, men and women who did not follow Jesus. Or worse, preferring the company of my sovereign self. But soon I found that my preferences were honored by neither Scripture nor Jesus. I didn't come to the conviction easily, but finally there was no getting around it: there can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholeness in the Christian life apart from immersion and embrace of community. I am not myself by myself. Community, not the highly vaunted individualism of our culture, is the setting in which Christ is at play.

Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in

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.

Thomas Jefferson

In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed.

Sid Caesar

Life...is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy , and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast.

Douglas Adams

Try to raise a voice that shall be heard from here to Albany and watch what it is that comes forward to shut off the sound. It is not a German sergeant, nor a Russian officer of the precinct. It is a note from a friend of your fathers offering you a place in his office. This is your warning from the secret police. Why, if any of you young gentlemen have a mind to get heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputation, and a close enemy of most men who wish you well. And what will you get in return? Well, if I must for the benefit of the economists, charge you up with some selfish gain, I will say that you get the satisfaction of having been heard, and that this is the whole possible scope of human ambition.

John Jay Chapman

Home is behind, the world ahead, <br>and there are many paths to tread <br>through shadows to the edge of night, <br>until the stars are all alight.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the

I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from.

Eddie Izzard

Praising what is lost Makes the remembrance dear

William Shakespeare

if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.

Stephen King

Hurry, conscious younger people! Get to power quickly so political decisions can be based on the greater good for all rather than the greater gain for few. Hurry, before it is too late!

Jane Siberry

We change the world not by what we say or do, but as a consequence of what we have become.

David R. Hawkins