Valor consists in the power of self-recovery, so that a man cannot have his flank turned, cannot be out-generalled, but put him where you will, he stands. This can only be by his preferring truth to his past apprehension of truth; and his alert acceptance of it, from whatever quarter; the intrepid conviction that his laws, his relations to society, his Christianity, his world may at any time be superseded and decease.

This is my impression of a bowling ball... (Drags the mikealong the floor, then lifts it...) Gutter...

Steven Wright

God, our genes, our environment, or some stupid programmer keying in code at an ancient terminal - there's no way free will can ever exist if we as individuals are the result of some external cause.

Orson Scott Card

I think being a woman is like being Irish. Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the same.

Iris Murdoch

'Tis an old maxim in the schools,That flattery's the food of fools;Yet now and then your men of witWill condescend to take a bit.

Jonathan Swift, Cadenus and Vane

It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in suchan inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, theirabsolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lackof style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give usan impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements ofbeauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, thewhole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenlywe find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of theplay. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonderof the spectacle enthralls us.

Oscar Wilde

No people find each other more absurd than lovers

C.S. Lewis

The real problem is that the way that power is given out in our society pits us against each other.

Anita Hill

Conquer anger by love, evil by good; conquer the miser with liberality, and the liar with truth.

Gautama Buddha

English people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age helped me enormously.

Vivien Leigh

Blindness hatred is blind, as well as love.

Thomas Fuller

A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, though the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen.

Virginia Woolf

It is true that too much belief can be bad for your health.

Terry Eagleton