I sometimes have a horrible fear of turning up a canvas of mine. I'm always afraid of finding a monster in place of the precious jewels I thought I had put there!

The public want actresses, because they think all actresses bad. They don't want music or poetry because they know that both are good. So actors and actresses thrive and poets and composers starve.

George Bernard Shaw

There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.

Napoleon Bonaparte

How glorious, then, is the prospect, the reverse of all the past, which is now opening upon us, and upon the world. Government, we may now expect to see, not only in theory and in books but in actual practice, calculated for the general good, and taking no more upon it than the general good requires, leaving all men the enjoyment of as many of their natural rights as possible, and no more interfering with matters of religion, with men's notions concerning God, and a future state, than with philosophy, or medicine.

Joseph Priestley, in a letter to

These are the soul's changes. I don't believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one's aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.

Virginia Woolf

Where did I get it from? Was it by reason that I attained to the knowledge that I must love my neighbour and not throttle him? They told me so when I was a child, and I gladly believed it, because they told me what was already in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason! Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.

Leo Tolstoy

Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There lies freedom, indeed.

Source Unknown

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

Samuel Johnson

Clothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance

Henry Ward Beecher

I think everybody has their own way of looking at their lives as some kind of pilgrimage. Some people will see their role as a pilgrim in terms of setting up a fine family, or establishing a business inheritance. Everyone's got their own definition.

Eric Clapton

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.

Thomas Paine

I don't think meals have any business being deductible. I'm for separation of calories and corporations.

Ralph Nader

You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch, therefore bear you the lantern.

William Shakespeare