Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular -- not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people.

I hadn't made a big-budget film, and in Hollywood there's a sort of man and boys situation. You're a man, you make $80 million movies! As if it's harder to make an $80 million movie. Well, I guess businesswise it is because you have more executives to argue with.

Gus Van Sant

Not one man in a thousand has the strength of mind or the goodness of heart to be an atheist.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It is a measure of the framers' fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself.

Sandra Day O'Connor

When an opera star sings her head off, she usually improves her appearance.

Victor Borge

I love being a single mom. But it's definitely different when you're dating.

Brooke Burns

One of the reasons mature people stop learning is that they become less and less willing to risk failure.

John W. Gardner

A soul that is reluctant to share does not as a rule have much of its own. Miserliness is here a symptom of meagerness.

Eric Hoffer

For the person for whom small things do not exist, the great is not great.

Jos

One may not always know his purpose until his only option is to monopolize in what he truly excels at. He grows weary of hearing the answer 'no' time and time again, so he turns to and cultivates, monopolizes in his one talent which others cannot possibly subdue. Then, beyond the crowds of criticism and rejection, the right people recognize his talent - among them he finds his stage.

Criss Jami

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.

Johann von Goethe

The real difficulty, the difficulty which has baffled the sages of all times, is rather this: how can we make our teaching so potent in the motional life of man, that its influence should withstand the pressure of the elemental psychic forces in the

Albert Einstein

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

Mark Twain