It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.

So long as the laws remain such as they are today, employ some discretion: loud opinion forces us to do so; but in privacy and silence let us compensate ourselves for that cruel chastity we are obliged to display in public.

Marquis de Sade

Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.

Bible

And now, because of a song, Vimes, a simple piece of music, Vimes, soft as a breath, stranger than a mountain, some very powerful states have agreed to work together to heal the problems of another autonomous state and, almost as collateral, turn some animals into people at a stroke.

Terry Pratchett

Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide --that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life --are alike forbidden.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The only virtue a character needs to possess between hardcovers, even if he bears a real person's name, is vitality: if he comes to life in our imaginations, he passes the test.

Stephen Vizinczey

Little said is soon amended. There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.

Baltasar Gracian

I stepped out on faith to follow my lifelong dream of being an author. I made real sacrifices and took big risks. But living, it seems to me, is largely about risk.

Jan Karon

When state and religion are one, religion becomes a means for the powerful to remain in power.

Walter Jon Williams

Faith is to believe what you do not see the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

Saint Augustine

In a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike. And no two journeys along the same path are alike.

Paulo Coelho

What do we call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, forgiveness? Different results of the master impulse, the necessity of securing one's self-approval.

Mark Twain

I cannot be awake, for nothing looks to me as it did before, Or else I am awake, for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep.

Walt Whitman