"Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of
giving birth - look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity,
and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be
intended for enjoyment."
-Soren Kierkegaard
"It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it."
-Eugene V. Debs
"If you think that a weakness can be turned into a strength, I hate to tell you this, but that's another weakness."
-Jack Handy
"I am angry that the Democrats don't have the ability to explain to Republicans that we should be able to feed people in this country, and that is not socialism."
-Lewis Black
"Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few."
-David Hume
"Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding."
-David Hume
"I do not see in religion the mystery of the incarnation so much as the mystery of the social order. It introduces into the thought of heaven an idea of equalization, which saves the rich from being massacred by the poor. "
-Napoleon Bonaparte
"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is bitterest."
-Confucious
"Romance and poetry, ivy, lichens, and wallflowers, need ruin to make them grow."
-Nathaniel Hawthorne
"The only prayer for a brave man is to be a-doing. This is the prayer that is heard. Why ask God for a respite when he has not given it? Has he not done his work and made man equal to his occasion, but he must have recourse to him again? God cannot give us any other help than self help."
-H.D. Thoreau
"The chief benefit, which results from philosophy, arises in an indirect manner, and proceeds more from its secret, insensible influence, than from its direct application."
-David Hume
"In a country well-governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of."-Soren Kierkegaard
"It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it."
-Eugene V. Debs
"If you think that a weakness can be turned into a strength, I hate to tell you this, but that's another weakness."
-Jack Handy
"I am angry that the Democrats don't have the ability to explain to Republicans that we should be able to feed people in this country, and that is not socialism."
-Lewis Black
"Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few."
-David Hume
"Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding."
-David Hume
"I do not see in religion the mystery of the incarnation so much as the mystery of the social order. It introduces into the thought of heaven an idea of equalization, which saves the rich from being massacred by the poor. "
-Napoleon Bonaparte
"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is bitterest."
-Confucious
"Romance and poetry, ivy, lichens, and wallflowers, need ruin to make them grow."
-Nathaniel Hawthorne
"The only prayer for a brave man is to be a-doing. This is the prayer that is heard. Why ask God for a respite when he has not given it? Has he not done his work and made man equal to his occasion, but he must have recourse to him again? God cannot give us any other help than self help."
-H.D. Thoreau
"The chief benefit, which results from philosophy, arises in an indirect manner, and proceeds more from its secret, insensible influence, than from its direct application."
-David Hume
-Confucius
"There are some men who are consoled by the idea that there are women less attractive than their wives; and others who are haunted by the knowledge that there are more attractive."
-John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman
"What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?"
-H.D. Thoreau
"Dreams are the touchstones of our characters. We are scarcely less afflicted when we remember some unworthiness in our conduct in a dream, than if it had been actual, and the intensity of our grief, which is our atonement, measures the degree by which this is separated from an actual unworthiness. For in dreams we but act a part which must have been learned and rehearsed in our waking hours, and no doubt could discover some waking consent thereto. If this meanness had not its foundation in us, why are we grieved at it? In dreams we see ourselves naked and acting out our real characters, even more clearly than we see others awake. But an unwavering and commanding virtue would compel even its most fantastic and faintest dreams to respect its ever-wakeful authority; as we are accustomed to say carelessly, we should never have dreamed of such a thing. Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake."
-H.D. Thoreau
"The thought of suicide is a powerful solace: by means of it one gets through many a bad night."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
"There is only so much time, and time must have a stop, while there is more to read than there ever was before. From the Yahwist and Homer to Freud, Kafka, and Beckett is a journey of nearly three millennia. Since that voyage goes past harbors as infinite as Dante, Chaucer, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy, all of whom amply compensate a lifetime's rereadings, we are in the pragmatic dilemma of excluding something else each time we read or reread extensively."
-Harold Bloom
"This man beside us also has a hard fight with an unfavouring world, with strong temptations, with doubts and fears, with wounds of the past which have skinned over, but which smart when they are touched. It is a fact, however surprising. And when this occurs to us we are moved to deal kindly with him, to bid him be of good cheer, to let him understand that we are also fighting a battle; we are bound not to irritate him, nor press hardly upon him nor help his lower self."
-John Watson
"Thou shalt protect thy father and honor no one above him, unless it beith me- thy sweet Lord."
-George Oscar Bluth, citing the Ten Commandments
"Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple."
-Barry Switzer
"If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."
-H.L. Mencken
"Do I allow the poor to suffer, and consign them, as old Friedrich used to say, to statistics and the devil? Well, so does God."
-H.L. Mencken
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