Our greatest leaders are neither dreamers nor dictators: They are, like Jefferson, those who articulate national aspirations yet master the mechanics of influence and know when to depart from dogma. Jefferson had a remarkable capacity to marshal idea...
Among the greatest tragedies is a person who believes that they aren't meant to win--by winning I mean find their purpose, passion and joy in life. They believe that other people have better DNA or happiness genes or something, but that they themselv...
Indeed, the maligned American pastime of baseball may be by-far the greatest and best sport by one criterion, when it comes to emulating and training for genuinely useful Neolithic skills! Think about it. The game consists of lots of patient waiting ...
The best stories (whether book or movie) involve redemption. If you are someone who believes you have made too many mistakes or your life has been too "bad" for God to want you, think of it this way: God, the greatest story teller, has not yet finish...
Yu Shu Lien: The Green Destiny Sword. You're giving it to Sir Te. Li Mu Bai: I am. He has always been our greatest protector. Yu Shu Lien: I don't understand. How can you part with it? It's been with you a long time. Li Mu Bai: Too many men have died...
Severus Snape: You sent for me, Headmistress? Dolores Umbridge: Ah, yes. The time has come for answers, whether he wants to give them or not. Have you bought the Veritaserum? Severus Snape: I'm afraid you have used up all my stores interrogating stud...
Smaug: And what about your little dwarf friends? Where are they hiding? Bilbo Baggins: Dwarves... No. No dwarves here. You've got that all wrong. Smaug: Oh, I don't think so, Barrel-Rider! They sent you in here to do their dirty work, while they skul...
Professor Henry Higgins: I know your head aches; I know you're tired; I know your nerves are as raw as meat in a butcher's window. But think what you're trying to accomplish. Think what you're dealing with. The majesty and grandeur of the English lan...
P.A. Announcer: Attention. Attention. Colonel Blake has secured for us The Halls of Montezuma. [unenthusiastically] P.A. Announcer: "So big, only the biggest of the screen can bring it to you all. Technicolor. Tell it to the Marines, those loveable l...
[last lines] Narrator: The Mercury program was over. Four years later, astronaut Gus Grissom was killed, along with astronauts White and Chaffee, when fire swept through their Apollo capsule. But on that glorious day in May 1963, Gordo Cooper went hi...
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: From that fateful day when stinking bits of slime first crawled from the sea and shouted to the cold stars, "I am man.", our greatest dread has always been the knowledge of our mortality. But tonight, we shall hurl the gau...
It was the only thing I ever really wanted. And that’s the sin that can’t be forgiven--that I hadn’t done what I wanted. It feels so dirty and pointless and monstrous, as one feels about insanity, because there’s no sense to it, no dignity, n...
A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement, and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest ...
This was no longer art: it even destroyed the harmony of the portrait itself. They were alive, they were human eyes! It seemed as if they had been cut out of a living man and set there. Here there was not that lofty pleasure which comes over the soul...
Guilt isn't in cat vocabulary. They never suffer remorse for eating too much, sleeping too long or hogging the warmest cushion in the house. They welcome every pleasurable moment as it unravels and savour it to the full until a butterfly or falling l...
God the Eater There is a god in whom I do not believe Yet to this god my love stretches, This god whom I do not believe in is My whole life, my life and I am his. Everything that I have of pleasure and pain (Of pain, of bitter pain and men's contempt...
Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Tha...
I'm an 'intelligent' sociopath. I don't have problems with drugs, I don't commit crimes, I don't take pleasure in hurting people, and I don't typically have relationship problems. I do have a complete lack of empathy. But I consider that an advantage...
The pursuit of joy in God is not optional. It is not an “extra” that a person might grow into after he comes to faith. It is not simply a way to “enhance” your walk with the Lord. Until your heart has hit upon this pursuit, your “faith” c...
Political writers argue in regard to the love of liberty with the same philosophy that philosophers do in regard to the state of nature; by the things they see they judge of things very different which they have never seen, and they attribute to men ...
Because the world is so corrupted, misspoken, unstable, exaggerated and unfair, one should trust only what one can experience with one's own senses, and THIS makes the senses stronger in Italy than anywhere in Europe. This is why, Barzini says, Itali...
