I understood that all the material of a literary work was in my past life, I understood that I had acquired it in the midst of frivolous amusements, in idleness, in tenderness and in pain, stored up by me without my divining its destination or even its survival, as the seed has in reserve all the ingredients which will nourish the plant.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The best thing about the world is that it has a mysterious structure and the worst thing is that it has a grievous structure.

Kedar Joshi

My major allegiance has been to storytelling, not to history.

Russell Banks

Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.

Walter Lippmann

Friends are like bras, attached near your heart for support. Foes are like panties, deported, every now and then, when they get dirty.

Santosh Kalwar

The body is like a car: the older you become the more care you have to take care of it - and you don't leave a Ferrari out in the sun.

Joan Collins

For every five well-adjusted and smoothly functioning Americans, there are two who never had the chance to discover themselves. It may well be because they have never been alone with themselves.

Marya Mannes

You don't decide to build a church because you have money in the bank. You build because God says this is what I should do. Faith is the supplier of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

Jim Bakker

Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes - every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man.

Orison Swett Marden

Then said a teacher , speak to us of teaching . And he said :The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple among his followers gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.The astronomer may spaeak to you of his understanding of space , but he cannot give you his understanding.The musician may sing to you of the rythem which is in all space , but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rythem nor the voice that echoes it .And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure , but he cannot conduct you thither .For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man .

Kahlil Gibran

I love the idea of anthropomorphizing machines. I love the idea of taking technology and giving it a personality.

J. J. Abrams

I never thought of losing, but now that it' s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.

Muhammad Ali