If Shakespeare had never existed, he asked, would the world have differed much from what it is today? Does the progress of civilization depend upon great men? Is the lot of the average human being better now that in the time of the Pharaohs?

I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary. If such is the form of ultimate wisdom, then life is a greater riddle than some of us think it to be. I was within a hair's-breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say.

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Do you have to make me feel like there's nothing left of me? You can take everything I have, you can break everything I am, like I am made of glass, like I am made of paper.Go on and try to tear me down I will be rising from the ground like a Skyscraper...

Demi Lovato

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.

Bill Cosby

We mean by politics the people's business -- the most important business there is.

Adlai Stevenson

Nah, I don't watch TV either, apart from a few sports programmes. I just don't have the time.

Eric Bristow

Everybody kind of perceives me as being angry. It's not anger, it's motivation.

Roger Clemens

One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action --the ability to pass directly from thought to action.

Eric Hoffer

It partook ... of eternity ... there is a coherence in things, a stability; something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out (she glanced at the window with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby; so that again tonight she had the feeling she had had once today, already, of peace, of rest. Of such moments, she thought, the thing is made that endures.

Virginia Woolf

Youth is too tumultuous for felicity; old age too insecure for happiness. The period most favorable to enjoyment, in a vigorous, fortunate, and generous life, is that between forty and sixty.

Christian Nevell Bovee

When you meet someone new who instantly gets you, your sense of humor and your attitudes and your worldview, even if theirs are different - and you get them in return. You both talk and talk and agree and laugh and nod and yes, yes, of course you should get another round of drinks.

Erin Morgenstern

Freedom of expression - in particular, freedom of the press - guarantees popular participation in the decisions and actions of government, and popular participation is the essence of our democracy.

Corazon Aquino

The happier person is one, that acknowledges and accepts life won't get any better than this.

Anthony Liccione