Storms make the oak grow deeper roots.

There's no question that jihad historically means war.

Pat Robertson

It is the passions that do and undo everything.

Bernard Le Bovier Fontenelle

Thinking is another attribute of the soul; and here I discover what properly belongs to myself. This alone is inseparable from me. I am -- I exist: this is certain; but how often? As often as I think; for perhaps it would even happen, if I should wholly cease to think, that I should at the same time altogether cease to be. I now admit nothing that is not necessarily true: I am therefore, precisely speaking, only a thinking thing, that is, a mind, understanding, or reason, -- terms whose signification was before unknown to me. I am, however, a real thing, and really existent; but what thing? The answer was, a thinking thing. The question now arises, am I aught besides? I will stimulate my imagination with a view to discover whether I am not still something more than a thinking being. Now it is plain I am not the assemblage of members called the human body; I am not a thin and penetrating air diffused through all these members, or wind, or flame, or vapour, or breath, or any of all the things I can imagine; for I supposed that all these were not, and, without changing the supposition, I find that I still feel assured of my existence.

Rene Descartes, The Nature of th

There are two ways to spread happiness; either be the light who shines it or be the mirror who reflects it.

Edith Wharton

We are here because over billions of years, countless variables fell into place, any of which could have taken another path. We are essentially a beautiful fluke, as are the millions of other species with which we share this planet. Our cells are composed of atoms and dust particles from distant galaxies, and from the billions of living organisms that inhabited this planet before us.

Wendy Mass

The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.

Joseph Addison

I was never sloppy with other people's money. Only my own. Because I figure, well, you can be.

Francis Ford Coppola

Men, when they fight in movies, it's a very different style. Harrison Ford was so cool when he had the whip, and Bruce Lee was such an artist that you couldn't take your eyes off of him.

Lucy Liu

Music had been my first love among the arts, and I was fascinated by it, as I still am.

Harry Mathews

Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you dont help us, who else in the world can help us do this?

Albert Camus

And so we take a holiday, a vacation, to gain release from this bondage for a space, to stand back from the rush of things and breathe again. But a holiday is a respite, not a cure. The more we need holidays, the more certain it is that the disease has conquered us and not we it. More and more holidays just to get away from it all is a sure sign of a decaying civilization; it was one of the most obvious marks of the breakdown of the Roman empire. It is a symptom that we haven't learned how to live so as to re-create ourselves in our work instead of being sapped by it. A car should always be charging its battery as it runs. If it simply uses up without putting back, it has to go into dock to be recharged. It is not a sign that we are running particularly well if we are constantly needing to go into dock.

Evelyn Underhill, The Mastery of

I just hope I remember to tell my kids that they are as happy as I look in my old photographs. And I hope that they believe me.

Stephen Chbosky