I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am.
—Sylvia Plath (American Poet, Novelist)
If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind, whom should we serve?
—Abigail Adams (American First Lady)
Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.
—Sergei Rachmaninoff (Russian Musician)
We have to constantly confront our deepest anxieties, our emptiness, our despair, our doubts; and there is nowhere for us to escape and hide from them. It is impossible to ever turn back, and at times it seems impossible to ever make any further progress.
—Stephen Batchelor (British Buddhist Author, Teacher)
Be thou incapable of change in that which is right, and men will rely upon thee. Establish unto thyself principles of action; and see that thou ever act according to them. First know that thy principles are just, and then be thou.
—Akhenaten (Egyptian Monarch)
Science fiction is no more written for scientists than ghost stories are written for ghosts.
—Brian Aldiss (English Novelist)
Keeping hatred inside makes you get mean and evil inside. And when you forgive you feel sorry for the one that hurt you; you return love for hate, and good for evil. And that stretches your heart and makes you bigger inside. Now when you hate you shrink up inside and get littler, and you squeeze your heart tight, and you stays so mad with peoples you feel sick all the time like you need the doctor. Folks with a loving heart don’t never need no doctor.
—Margaret Walker (American Author, Poet)
A newspaper is of necessity something of a monopoly, and its first duty is to shun the temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free, but facts are sacred.
—C. P. Scott (British Journalist, Editor)
It’s not what you are; it’s what you don’t become that hurts.
—Oscar Levant (American Musician)
Time ain’t for savin’, no there’s no time for that.
—Jimmy Buffett (American Singer-Songwriter)
To God, thy country, and thy friend be true, then thou’lt ne’er be false to any one.
—Henry Vaughan (Anglo-Welsh Poet)
The existence of inherent limits of experience in no way settles the question about the subordination of facts of the human world to our knowledge of matter.
—Wilhelm Dilthey (German Philosopher)
If ease of use was the only requirement, everybody would still be riding tricycles.
—Douglas Engelbart (American Inventor)