Ordinary men wonder why those of only average intelligence so often rise to the highest levels of power, while highly intelligent people generally do not. They fail to understand that reaching the highest levels of power has nothing to do with admire...
The same sensitivity that opens artists to Being also makes them vulnerable to the dark powers of non-Being. It is no accident that many creative people--including Dante, Pascal, Goethe, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Beethoven, Rilke, Blake, and Van Gogh--...
You better [start writing] now because you know how to write, and you have fingers, and you have this one life, and during this one life, you should put your words down, and make your voice heard, and then let others hear your voice. And the only way...
sufferers of depression, who can elect to keep their feelings private, experience chronic, unremitting emotional alienation. Each moment spent “passing” as normal deepens the sense of disconnection generated by depression in the first instance. I...
Some people you don't give up on. Not because you can tell what they'll be or what will happen. Not because of that. It's because something inside you insists that you shouldn't---something knows more or knows better, stubbornly holds its ground, eve...
When you are content to simply be yourself, without comparing and competing to impress others, everyone worthwhile will respect you. And even more importantly, you will respect yourself. No one has the right to judge you. People may have heard your s...
Who you affect is more powerful than who you are at any given moment. Nothing is as enduring as a great memory. In the end, its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, and feelings that last. Stone cracks. Wood rots. Skin dies. But great thoughts, ...
Be the kind of person that others admire, can count on, trust and enjoy spending time with. After you have developed that reputation, people will start to ask you what you do, and will want to work with you on the things that matter. When you focus o...
A historic transition is occurring, barely noticed. Slowly, quietly, imperceptibly, religion is shriveling in America, as it has done in Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan and other advanced societies. Supernatural faith increasingly belongs to the Thi...
I know inside that there is more to life than this mortal coil. It's a very shallow minded person who thinks that someone is born and dies and that's it. I haven't gone through thirty odd years of suffering, and doing what I do, and looking at other ...
Emmeline Finch: Oh Russell, I feel sick. J. Russell Finch: Now take it easy honey, these things happen ya know. Mrs. Marcus: Now what kind of an attitude is that, "these things happen"? They only happen because this whole country is just full of peop...
Dwight Dickham: You're a shined up wooden nickel, Mr Palmer. A bully with a bag of tricks. But unlike you, I have one simple belief. That the law is the only thing that's capable of making people equal. Now you may think that Mark Blackwell is white ...
Hub: Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good al...
Jack Napier: Decent people shouldn't live here. They'd be happier someplace else. Alicia: Pretty tough talk about Carl. Jack Napier: Don't worry about it. If this clown could touch Grissom, I'd have handed him his lungs by now. Alicia: If Grissom kne...
[in the waiting room of the afterlife] Barbara: Adam, is this what happens when you die? Receptionist: This is what happens when *you* die. [points at a gaunt man smoking] Receptionist: That is what happens when *he* dies. [points at a woman cut in h...
Nurse Noakes: You are going to be sorry in ways you cannot even imagine. Mr. Meeks: [shrieks to draw attention of the crowd in the pub] Are there no true Scotsmen in the house? Those there English gerrunts are trampling all over my God-given rights! ...
Max: You're full of shit. Vincent: I'm full of shit? You're a monument of it. You even bullshitted yourself, all I am is taking out the garbage, killing bad people. Max: Yeah, well that's what you said. Vincent: You believed me? Max: Then what'd they...
Lucius Fox: [On the plan to capture Lau] Now, for high altitude jumps, you'll need oxygen and stabilizers; but I must say, compared to your usual requests, jumping out of an airplane is pretty straightforward. Bruce Wayne: And what about getting back...
Salvatore Maroni: [to Batman who is interrogating him about The Joker] No one's gonna tell you nothin'. They're wise to your act. You got rules. The Joker, he's got no rules. No one's gonna cross him to you. You want this guy, you got one way. But yo...
Frank Costello: Church wants you on your place. Kneel, stand, kneel, stand. If you go for that sort of thing, I don't know what to do for you. A man makes his own way. No one gives it to you. You have to take it. "Non serviam." Young Colin: James Joy...
John Blake: Not a lot of people know what it feels like to be angry, in your bones. I mean, they understand, foster parents, everybody understands, for awhile. Then they want the angry little kid to do something he knows he can't do, move on. So afte...
