Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand. Unless, of course, you can literally believe all that stuff about family reunions 'on the further shore,' pictured in entirely earthly terms. But that is all unscriptural, all out of bad hymns and lithographs. There's not a word of it in the Bible. And it rings false. We know it couldn't be like that. Reality never repeats. The exact same thing is never taken away and given back. How well the Spiritualists bait their hook! 'Things on this side are not so different after all.' There are cigars in Heaven. For that is what we should all like. The happy past restored.

By living exclusively for the present, we let ourselves be hemmed in by an ocean of death. Conversely, by reviving the past, we enlarge our living space.

Amin Maalouf

There's this common perception that having a famous last name is all you need. A surname may get you a meeting, but if there's no talent you won't get the part.

Lily Collins

Thus, the use of fiat money is more justifiable in financing a depression than in financing a war.

Carroll Quigley

Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it.

Georges Bataille

My dad is a really honest, hardworking, straight guy.

Joe Lando

Of all possible sexual perversions, religion is the only one to have ever been scientifically systematized.

Louis Aragon

Power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand.

Leo Tolstoy

Animals praise a good day, a good hunt. They praise rain if they're thirsty. That's prayer. They don't live an unconscious life, they simply have no language to talk about these things. But they are grateful for the good things that come along.

Mary Oliver

Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.

Bruce Lee

It is the duty of Her Majesty's government neither to flap nor to falter.

Harold MacMillan

How close men, despite all their knowledge, usually live to madness? What is truth but to live for an idea? When all is said and done, everything is based on a postulate; but not until it no longer stands on the outside, not until one lives in it, does it cease to be a postulate.

Søren Kierkegaard

Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Because the dream is within you, no one can take it away.

Tom Clancy