I have used these weeks to revalue values. Do you understand this expression? When you come right down to it, the alchemist is the most praiseworthy of men: I mean the one who changes something negligible or contemptible into something of value, even gold. He alone enriches, the others merely exchange. My task is quite singular this time: I have asked myself what mankind has always hated, feared, and despised the most

A self-taught man usually has a poor teacher and a worse student.

Henny Youngman

You see, you all start with the premise that democracy is some good. I don't think it's worth a damn. I think Churchill is right, the only thing to be said for democracy is that there is nothing else that's any better, and therefore he used to say, Tyranny tempered by assassination, but lots of assassination. People say, If the Congress were more representative of the people it would be better. I say the Congress is too damn representative. It's just as stupid as the people are; just as uneducated, just as dumb, just as selfish. You know the Congress is a perfect example, and created to be a perfect example.http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/acheson.htm

Dean Acheson, interview with The

I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

Thomas Alva Edison

Beauty is a relation, and the apprehension of it a comparison.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

In my childhood, America was like a religion. Then, real-life Americans abruptly entered my life - in jeeps - and upset all my dreams.

Sergio Leone

You don't need to climb a mountain to know that it's high.

Paulo Coelho

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied

Mark Twain

Whatever we do or fail to do will influence the course of history.

Arthur Henderson

A father is a banker provided by nature.

Proverb

We live in an age of mediocrity.

Lauren Bacall

As we look over the list of the early leaders of the republic, Washington, John Adams, Hamilton, and others, we discern that they were all men who insisted upon being themselves and who refused to truckle to the people. With each succeeding generation, the growing demand of the people that its elective officials shall not lead but merely register the popular will has steadily undermined the independence of those who derive their power from popular election. The persistent refusal of the Adamses to sacrifice the integrity of their own intellectual and moral standards and values for the sake of winning public office or popular favor is another of the measuring rods by which we may measure the divergence of American life from its starting point.

James Truslow Adams