Human desire

Human desire for freedom knows no bounds of race or religion or region.

- David Milliband, UK Foreign Secretary, Friday 28 September 2007, speaking in response to the escalating violence in Burma inflicted by the military regime on the Burmese people

Cleverness

The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it.

- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Self

"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true."

- Nigel Hawthorne

Right

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."

G. K. Chesterton
English author & mystery novelist (1874 - 1936)

Laughter

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

- Kurt Vonnegut

Bad luck

It is bad luck to be superstitious.

Embracing Ignorance

"Working class doesn't any longer describe a stratum of society. It is a cultural commodity, dreamed up by glossy magazines and Channel 4 and whoever else has a material stake in kitschifying crassness. It's an option you may refuse...You don't have to read Jordan's autobiography or take The Sun. You don't have to refuse to let your child eat polenta for school dinners and go on stuffing him with meat pie. You don't have to stagger legless through Prague the night before your wedding. Footballers are not an obligation, pop music is not a birthright, knowing nothing is not your heritage."

- Howard Jacobson in The Independent