Take back the beauty and wit you bestow upon me; leave me my own mediocrity of agreeableness and genius, but leave me also my sincerity, my constancy, and my plain dealing; 'tis all I have to recommend me to the esteem either of others or myself.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

George Bernard Shaw

Organisms by their design are not made to adapt too far.

Kevin Kelly

The first duty of a lecturer is to hand you after an hour's discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks and keep on the mantelpiece forever.

Virginia Woolf

The greatest fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change.

Edward Snowden

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Samuel Johnson

Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that.

Michael Leunig

Enjoy your happiness while you have it, and while, you have it do not too closely scrutinize its foundation.

Joseph Farrell

The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder's moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a priveleged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name.

Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee

To reduce deficit spending and our enormous debt, you reign in spending. You cut the budget. You don't take more from the private sector and grow government with it. And that's exactly what Obama has in mind with this expiration of Bush tax cuts proposal of his.

Sarah Palin

My prayer to God is a very short one: O Lord, make my enemies look ridiculous! God has granted it.

Voltaire (FrançoisMarie Arouet)

It is not the dream of what you're feeling laziness, if not, the sleep of exhaustion.

Edmundo de Amicis

every now and then, i worry about people in the third world countries. and then i figure if they all started having sex, their lives would be considerably brighter.

Jodi Picoult