"The man who is isolated, who is unable to share in the benefits of... association, or has no need to share because he is already self-sufficient... must... be either a beast or a god."
-Aristotle, Politics

"People aren't people, except in the way they relate to one another."
-Someone Meara Can't Remember

"But what is it, then, that fills me with joy when I am alone with myself? I rejoice in myself, in the entire universe, in all that is and that can be, in all that is beautiful in the world of the senses, the world of the imagination, and the world of the mind."
-Rousseau in a letter to Malesherbes from Montmorency in 1762

"I must speak, not because it is the best thing to do, but because it is so hard to refrain."
-Petrarch, On his own Ignorance

"Plenty have hoped and dreamed and prayed
But they can't get out of Klimovich."
-The Last Five Years

"Now, nothing makes me more angry than people who torment one another, particularly if young people in the prime of their lives, when they should be most receptive of all pleasures, mutually spoil their few good days by putting on moody faces, realising only when it is too late that they have wasted something irrecoverable."
-Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

"Spirit is a commanding and an unconquerable thing."
~Aristotle, Politics

"I certainly think it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you want to control her, it is necessary to treat her roughly... Since, fortune is a woman, she is always well disposed towards young men, because they are less cautious and more aggressive, and treat her more boldly"
~Machiavelli, The Prince

From overheardinchicago.blogspot.com

Server: "This is the real world, kid. There are no sprinkles."

- Ed Debevic's

The Present Moment

A Japanese warrior was captured by his enemies and thrown into prison. That night he was unable to sleep because he feared that the next day he would be interrogated, tortured, and executed. Then the words of his Zen master came to him, "Tomorrow is not real. It is an illusion. The only reality is now." Heeding these words, the warrior became peaceful and fell asleep.

I found this here.

Never in a Monarchy can the opulence of an individual put him above the Prince; but, in a Republic, it can easily put him above the laws. Then the government no longer has force, and the rich are always the true sovereign.
~Rousseau (Lettre à d'Alembert)

Why does the stream of genius so seldom break out as a torrent, with roaring high waves, and shake your awed soul?-- Dear friends, because there are cool and composed gentlemen living on both banks, whose garden houses, tulip beds and cabbage fields would be devastated if they had not in good time known how to meet the threatening danger by building dams and ditches.
-Goethe (The Sorrows of Young Werther)

And the clock said:
"Na na na na, na na na
Oh Schmuel, you'll get to be happy!
Na na na na, na na na
I give you unlimited time!
Na na na na, na na na
So Schmuel, go sew and be happy!"
~The Last Five Years

"I swear to God I'll never understand
How you can stand there straight and tall
And see I'm crying
And not do anything at all"
- The Last Five Years

"Women are capable of doing everything we do: the only difference between them and us is that they are nicer."
-Voltaire's comment in a footnote in Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality

Sorrowfully and tacitly I recognize my own ignorance, when I consider how much I lack of what my mind[,] in its craving for knowledge[,] is sighing for.
-Petrarch (On his own Ignorance)

Will I loose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?
~Rent

A good story has the power to heal the soul.
~Deeply