“Alexander the Great found the philosopher looking attentively at a pile of human bones. Diogenes explained, "I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave.”

“Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.”

“I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.”

“If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?”

“To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe.”

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what's a heaven for?”

“You never got me down, Ray.”

“Don’t be afraid. There’s no such thing as death…”

“Now I would solicit the particular attention of those numerous people who imagine that money is everything in this world, and that rank and ability are inseparable from wealth: let them observe Cincinnatus”

“Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.”

Credit (painting): Olga Rodina

“The next words that spilled from my lips ... came from so deep within my gut that it nearly made all the things I’ve ever said feel like a lie. I will kill you.”

“Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.”

“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”

“I hate rude behavior in a man. I won’t tolerate it.”

“Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”

“Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,

And here on earth come emulating flies,

That though they never equal stars in size,

(And they were never really stars at heart)

Achieve at times a very star-like start.

Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.”

“When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,

The mother of months in meadow or plain

Fills the shadows and windy places

With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;

And the brown bright nigthingale amorous

Is half assuaged for Itylus,

For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces,

The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.”

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?”