ON the decline of the Roman power, about five centuries after Christ, the countries of Northern Europe were left almost destitute of a national government.

The sunflower is a favorite emblem of constancy

For Mythology is the handmaid of literature; and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness.

The preparatory education of candidates for knighthood was long and arduous.

The word "Chivalry" is derived from the French Cheval, a horse.

The Romans held Britain from the invasion of Julius Caesar till their voluntary withdrawal from the island, A.D. 420,- that is, about five hundred years.

Without a knowledge of mythology much of the elegant literature of our own language cannot be understood and appreciated.

The word knight, which originally meant boy or servant, was particularly applied to a young man after he was admitted to the privilege of bearing arms.

We thus see that the Greeks of the early ages knew little of any real people except those to the east and south of their own country, or near the coast of the Mediterranean.

The earliest form in which romances appear is that of a rude kind of verse.

If no other knowledge deserves to be called useful but that which helps to enlarge our possessions or to raise our station in society, then Mythology has no claim to the appellation.

You can't live without failing at something, unless you love so cautiously you might as well have nit lived at all, in which case, you fail be default.

He [Widmerpool] moistened his lips, though scarcely perceptibly. I thought his mixture of secretiveness and curiosity quite intolerable.

I want to do whatever I possibly can to be as good as I can be.

The basic purpose of a liberal arts education is to liberate the human being to exercise his or her potential to the fullest.

Comics don't usually have very long careers, and I'm 22 years into this.

A wise man shall overrule his stars, and have a greater influence upon his own content than all the constellations and planets of the firmament.

There were other auto manufacturers that were confabulating as much as [Buckminster Fuller] was, making claims about how cars resembled this or that aspect of nature.

Fail, and your friends feel superior. Succeed, and they feel resentful.

And I've always worked on the principle that if it interests me enough to write about it, then it must interest a lot of other people.

Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.