July 29, 2012

Ayn Rand: Envy is...

Envy is the only name she could find for the monstrous thing she faced, but it was much worse than envy: it was the profound hatred of life, of success and of all human values, felt by a certain kind of mediocrity...the kind who feels pleasure on hearing about a stranger's misfortune. It was hatred of the good for being the good...hatred of ability, of beauty, of honesty, of earnestness, of achievement and, above all, of human joy.
/Ayn Rand/

Dan Quayle: ...I pledge...

...I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag and to the Savior, for whose Kingdom it stands, one Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again, with life and liberty for all who believe.
/Dan Quayle/

July 28, 2012

Al Franken: Mistakes are...

Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.
/Al Franken/

Sai Baba: The life...

The life ahead can only be glorious if you learn to live in total harmony with the Lord.
/Sai Baba/

July 25, 2012

Emma Goldman: Free love?...

Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere.
/Emma Goldman/

July 19, 2012

Robert Wagner: A dog...

A dog will teach you unconditional love. If you can have that in your life, things won't be too bad.
/Robert Wagner/

Salman Rushdie: Free speech...

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.
/Salman Rushdie/

July 17, 2012

Jessi Lane Adams: Skipping subtracts...

Skipping subtracts years from your heart, adds joy to your life, multiplies your happiness, and divides your stress. It's a prime exercise, and I count it among one of my greatest blessings.
/Jessi Lane Adams/

Jean Giraudoux: The flower...

The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.
/Jean Giraudoux/

July 15, 2012

Arthur Ashe: If I...

If I were to say, God, why me? about the bad things, then I should have said, God, why me? about the good things that happened in my life.
/Arthur Ashe/

July 14, 2012

Matthew Henry: I thank...

I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.
/Matthew Henry/

July 12, 2012

Lee Drake: A bad...

A bad grade is only one letter in the Essay of life.
/Lee Drake/

Barack Obama: When we...

When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans - an avian flu pandemic.
/Barack Obama/

July 11, 2012

Ani Difranco: Maybe you...

Maybe you don't like your job, maybe you didn't get enough sleep, well nobody likes their job, nobody got enough sleep. Maybe you just had the worst day of your life, but you know, there's no escape, there's no excuse, so just suck up and be nice.
/Ani Difranco/

July 10, 2012

George Santayana: Life is...

Life is neither a spectacle nor a feast, it is predicament.
/George Santayana/

July 07, 2012

Donald A. Hansen: The effort...

The effort to remold, in one's own life, the culture one has grown into is heavy with danger. The searcher is likely to be treated as a criminal or a madman, condemned and criticized by his own society, ridiculed, even persecuted. Even if he is more fortunate--even if he is simply ignored by others--he must begin his struggle as a cripple. For to consciously reject the generalized attitudes' of the parent society is to reject positive reference points that have helped him evaluate his actions and accomplishments.This is the price of freedom on the peripheries. We are able to free ourselves from our parent culture only by destroying parts of ourselves, much as an animal might escape the hunter's trap by gnawing off its own leg. But unlike the wounded animal, the detached person is doubly crippled; however he mutilates himself, he will never quite be free of the trap but will carry it with him in his new freedom.
/Donald A. Hansen/

July 06, 2012

Edna Ferber: Wasn't marriage,...

Wasn't marriage, like life, unstimulating and unprofitable and somewhat empty when too well ordered and protected and guarded. Wasn't it finer, more splendid, more nourishing, when it was, like life itself, a mixture of the sordid and the magnificent; of mud and stars; of earth and flowers; of love and hate and laughter and tears and ugliness and beauty and hurt.
/Edna Ferber/

July 05, 2012

Sarah Zettel: Now, Venus...

Now, Venus is an extremely hostile environment, and as such presents a lot of challenges for a science fiction author who wants to create life there. However, as I began to research it more thoroughly, I found myself intrigued by the possibilities the world offers.
/Sarah Zettel/

Alfred North Whitehead: It is...

It is the first step in sociological wisdom, to recognize that the major advances in civilisation are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur: like unto an arrow in the hand of a child. The art of free society consists first in the maintenance of the symbolic code; and secondly in fearlessness of revision, to secure that the code serves those purposes which satisfy an enlightened reason. Those societies which cannot combine reverence to their symbols with freedom of revision, must ultimately decay either from anarchy, or from the slow atrophy of a life stifled by useless shadows.
/Alfred North Whitehead/

July 04, 2012

Alain de Botton: In the...

In the works of Lucretius, we find two reasons why we shouldn't worry about death. If you have had a successful life, Lucretius tell us, there's no reason to mind its end. And, if you haven't had a good time, "Why do you seek to add more years, which would also pass but ill?"
/Alain de Botton/

Mahatma Gandhi: Constant development...

Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.
/Mahatma Gandhi/

July 03, 2012

Jennifer Saunders: There were...

There were a lot of areas we didn't cover that I'm hoping to cover if we do some specials. One is to see more of Patsy's home and her home life, which is just the saddest thing.
/Jennifer Saunders/

July 02, 2012

Alexander Hamilton: Safety from...

Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.
/Alexander Hamilton/

Eric Hoffer: All mass...

All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred and intolerance; all of them are capable of releasing a powerful flow of activity in certain departments of life; all of them demand blind faith and singlehearted allegiance.
/Eric Hoffer/

Pearl S. Buck: Life without...

Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death.
/Pearl S. Buck/

July 01, 2012

Jerome K. Jerome: It is...

It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon it says, Work! After beefsteak and porter, it says, Sleep! After a cup of tea (two spoonfuls for each cup, and don't let it stand for more than three minutes), it says to the brain, Now rise, and show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature, and into life: spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!
/Jerome K. Jerome/