It is said that only a fool learns from his own mistakes, a wise man from the mistakes of others.

And partly, the worst thing you could do in my family was need something from someone. So physical strength represented an avenue of self-sufficiency to me.

Alison Bechdel

History is fond of her grandchildren, for it offers them the marrow of the bones, which the previous generation had hurt its hands in breaking.

Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsk

Modern man's besetting temptation is to sacrifice his direct perceptions and spontaneous feelings to his reasoned reflections; to prefer in all circumstances the verdict of his intellect to that of his immediate intuitions.

Aldous Huxley

Why abandon a belief merely because it ceases to be true? Cling to it long enough and... it will turn true again, for so it goes. Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.

Robert Frost

The higher American patriotism, on the other hand, combines loyalty to historical tradition and precedent with the imaginative projection of an ideal national Promise.

Herbert Croly

When we are sick, we want an uncommon doctor when we have a construction job to do, we want an uncommon engineer, and when we are at war, we want an uncommon general. It is only when we get into politics that we are satisfied with the common man.

Herbert Hoover

The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants.

George W. Bush

The quality of American life is an insult to the possibilities of human growth... the pollution of American space, with gadgetry and cars and TV and box architecture, brutalizes the senses, making gray neurotics of most of us, and perverse spiritual athletes and strident self-transcenders of the best of us.

Susan Sontag

A professionally trained actress should be a better liar, wouldn't you think? But no. I am pathetically underachieved in that area. I can think of a great lie. I'm plenty imaginative. But before the words are even out of my mouth, there's a weird tickle of unease in my armpits, a horsefly of guilt lands on the back of my neck, and before I can stop myself, that gassy little bubble of truth belches out.

Kristin Chenoweth

Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits.

William Hazlitt

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.

Johann von Goethe

A little kingdom I possess,Where thoughts and feelings dwell;And very hard the task I findOf governing it well.

Louisa May Alcott, My Kingdom st