Work is the true elixir of life. The busiest man is the happiest man. Excellence in any art or profession is attained only by hard and persistent work. Never believe that you are perfect. When a man imagines, even after years of striving, that he has attained perfection, his decline begins.

If any person had told the Parliament which met in terror and perplexity after the crash of 1720 that in 1830 the wealth of England would surpass all their wildest dreams, that the annual revenue would equal the principal of that debt which they considered an intolerable burden, that for one man of

Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Edin

I think that in a year I may retire. I cannot take my money with me when I die and I wish to enjoy it, with my family, while I live. I should prefer living in Germany to any other country, though I am an American, and am loyal to my country.

Harry Houdini

In the forensic science course I took at university they used photographs of dead bodies. For ballistics they showed us a guy lying on the floor, and his head had burst.

Denise Mina

A lion, for instance, which in nature is not a very distinctive object, was portrayed, for greater distinction, with its leonine attributes, its fierce expression, frightful claws, lithe and ,lissom body all vastly exaggerated, so that indeed it looked more like a lion than did ever any lion of nature. In this wise, by turning away from true representation and adopting a character all its own, was the 'heraldic lion' born, and with it came also the manner of depictin all the other beasts and forms and patterns which is so peculiarly heraldic.

Sir George Bellew

I'd come out of the army after five years as a medic. I was a medical administrator and we ran hospitals, and I was a Captain in the army at the end, in 1945.

Eli Wallach

Washington's answer to a self-inflicted financial crisis reminded Americans why they so deeply distrust the political class. The 'fiscal cliff' process was secretive and sloppy, and the nation's so-called leadership lacked the political courage to address our root problems: joblessness and debt.

Ron Fournier

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests

Gore Vidal

I found the offer of a knighthood something that I couldn't possibly accept. I found it to be somehow squalid, a knighthood. There's a relationship to government about knights.

Harold Pinter

It is noble to teach oneself, but still nobler to teach othersand less trouble. - speech, 1906

Mark Twain

Life is easier to take than you think; all that is necessary is to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable and bear the intolerable.

Kathleen Norris

In this world, you get what you pay for.

Kurt Vonnegut

Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.

John Locke