First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.
—Cecil Day-Lewis (British Poet, Critic)
The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are in the right.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)
There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.
—Celia Thaxter (American Poet)
While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.
—Dorothea Lange (American Photographer)
Words today are like the shells and rope of seaweed which a child brings home glistening from the beach and which in an hour have lost their luster.
—Cyril Connolly (British Literary Critic)
How much a dunce that has been sent to roam, excels a dunce that has been kept at home.
—William Cowper (English Anglican Poet)
Thinking should become your capital asset, whatever ups and downs you may come across in your life.
—A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (Indian Head of State, Scientist)
In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn’t translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse.
—Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Dutch Politician, Activist)
When I think of vision, I have in mind the ability to see above and beyond the majority.
—Chuck Swindoll (American Christian Pastor)
Perfect works are rare, because they must be produced at the happy moment when taste and genius unite; and this rare conjuncture, like that of certain planets, appears to occur only after the revolution of several cycles, and only lasts for an instant.
—Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (French Writer, Statesman)