What's the world's greatest lie?... It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate.

'Tis all a Checker-board of Nights and days where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays: Hither and thither moves, and mates and slays, and one by one back in the Closet lays.

Omar Khayyam

No one knows what women want!

Ian Somerhalder

Twenty-five years ago, while an undergraduate at Stanford, I got a job on campus as a lifeguard, deepening a love of swimming and water that has lasted throughout my life. I took the duties seriously and studied the swimmers with professional vigilance, relieved at the end of each day that no emergency rescue had been required. But the greatest challenge of the job was standing poolside in a bathing suit with my body on display.Work began in the locker room, where I changed into my Speedo and surveyed my reflection, assessing what would be on view for the next few hours. I was plagued by self-criticism. I imagined the swimmers judging my shape, until I made myself remember that I was there to guard their lives, not their fantasies. Later I performed my variation of the same ablutions everyone else did, showering and hair washing, the application of lotion and makeup -- preparations for re-entering the other world of walking upright on solid land.

Elizabeth Rosner, "The New York

I think if you left grownups to do what they really actually wanted most in the world to do, every single one of them would lie down and take a nap for the rest of their life. I know this because that's what every grownup does as soon as they're alone.

Orson Scott Card

Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.

Mahatma Gandhi

First of all, Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. If anything at all, it is realistic, for it takes a realistic view of life and the world. It looks at things objectively (). It does not falsely lull you into living in a fool's paradise, nor does it frighten and agonize you with all kinds of imaginary fears and sins. It tells you exactly and objectively what you are and what the world around you is, and shows you the way to perfect freedom, peace, tranquility and happiness.

Walpola Rahula

I cannot be grasped in the here and now,For my dwelling place is much among the dead,As the yet unborn,Slightly closer to the heart of creation than usual,But still not close enough.

Paul Klee

Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.

Aldous Huxley

The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; but his whole life is already a treason and a stratagem

Thomas Carlyle

I don't mind saying, you know, that I don't take a salary from the church, and God has blessed me with more money than I could imagine from my books.

Joel Osteen

If a country doesn't recognize minority rights and human rights, including women's rights, you will not have the kind of stability and prosperity that is possible.

Hillary Clinton

Being here, it is just impossible to imagine what that was like, when the tsunami hit.

Connie Sellecca