Sir Joshua would have been glad to take her portrait; and he would have had an easier task than the historian at least in this, that he would not have had to represent the truth of change --only to give stability to one beautiful moment.

There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it, from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are- my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks- we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dori

I am a degenerate modern semi-intellectual who would die if I did not get my early morning cup of tea and my every Friday. Clearly I do not, in a sense, 'want' to return to a simpler, harder, probably agricultural way of life. In the same sense I don't 'want' to cut down on my drinking, to pay my debts, to take enough exercise, to be faithful to my wife, etc. etc. But in another and more permanent sense I do want these things, and perhaps in the same sense I want a civilization in which 'progress' is not definable as making the world safe for little fat men.

George Orwell

I worked in a health food store once. A guy came in and asked me, If I melt dry ice, can I take a bath without getting wet?

Steven Wright

Logic works, metaphysics contemplates.

Joseph Joubert

We're not uncomfortable with it, and we've already been through enough of the music business where I'm not really worried that commercial success is going to in some way - we're already past saving, you know what I mean? It's too late for us.

Jerry Garcia

Fear is proof of a low born soul.

Virgil

When you're caught up in the storm or, you know, just the turmoil of everything that there is another side and you do get through it. And you know, just standing by the truth and doing the right thing.

Amber Frey

Sometimes it helps to know that I just can't do it all. One step at a time is all that's possible -- even when those steps are taken on the run.

Anne W. Schaef

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense... that gold and economic freedom are inseparable.

Alan Greenspan

The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness.

Norman Cousins

It's amazing the hours you pull when you're the lead of a show.

Jamie Luner

There are two good rules which ought to be written on every heart - never to believe anything bad about anybody unless you positively know it to be true never to tell even that unless you feel that it is absolutely necessary, and that God is listening.

Henry Van Dyke