The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

Never be in a hurry do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.

Saint Francis de Sales

I have some women friends but I prefer men. Don't trust women. There is a built-in competition between women.

Edna O'Brien

And last are the few whose delight is in meditation and understanding; who yearn not for goods, nor for victory, but for knowledge; who leave both market and battlefield to lose themselves in the quiet clarity of secluded thought; whose will is a light rather than a fire, whose haven is not power but truth: these are the men of wisdom, who stand aside unused by the world.

Will Durant

The worst of it is that I am perpetually being punished for nothing; this governor loves to punish, and he punishes by taking my books away from me. It's perfectly awful to let the mind grind itself away between the upper and nether millstones of regret and remorse without respite; with books my life would be livable -- any life.

Oscar Wilde

I wouldn't compare myself to any past Idol contestant, because I don't feel like I am like any of them. Maybe stories are cool but my story is different from most people's story. I don't like to compare myself to other people, I like to just be me.

Naima Adedapo

Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal.

Bishop Robert South

Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.

Pat Riley

The word question is derived from the Latin quarrier (to seek) which is the same root as the word for quest. A creative life is a continued quest, and good questions can be very useful guides. Most useful are open-ended questions; they allow for fresh unanticipated answers to reveal themselves.

Source Unknown

The liberals have not softened their view of actuality to make themselves live closer to the dream, but instead sharpen their perceptions and fight to make the dream actuality or give up the battle in despair.

Margaret Mead

When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it - a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand - as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it's bad art.

Marc Chagall

A fly may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

Samuel Johnson

But Catherine did not know her own advantages - did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward.

Jane Austen