The seed of mortals broods o'er passing things, and hath nought surer than the smoke-cloud's shadow.

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

In war, truth is the first casualty.

Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.

There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.

Zeus, first cause, prime mover; for what thing without Zeus is done among mortals?

It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer.

Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

The air is Zeus, Zeus earth, and Zeus the heaven, Zeus all that is, and what transcends them all.

For there is no defense for a man who, in the excess of his wealth, has kicked the great altar of Justice out of sight.

By polluting clear water with slime you will never find good drinking water.

I'm gonna take you right here on this table, Scar, so every time you're sitting here working, all you'll be able to think about is coming apart on my mouth.

Men learn wisdom from their sins, not from their righteous deeds.

Up to a point, it is better to just let the snags [bugs] be there than to spend such time in design that there are none.

And once you're unafraid with death, I think your capacity for violence is immediately increased. Once you're unafraid of death, you are a very, very dangerous adversary

The paintings to me are always canvas, sculpture has always been metal, though I have made sculpture in wood also.

When my husband first read a draft, he said, "You spend too much time describing the characters' outfits." He was right. I removed much of the clothes talk, but quite a bit remained.

Excellence is never an accident.

The beauty of my sport is that you can do it from anywhere.

While some of my closest friends were jocks, it seemed that they spoke a different language with each other. Joining in their conversation was fraught with risk.

[Barack Obama] pledged to end torture, but he has continued the CIA renditions where you kidnap people and send them to another country to be interrogated.