Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.

Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.

Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.

Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad.

We see things as we are, not as they are.

Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.

A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood.

Why did God give me two ears and one mouth? So that I will hear more and talk less.

Some things are so unexpected that no one is prepared for them.

Satire is focused bitterness.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.

Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.

I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.

Extremists think "communication" means agreeing with them.

The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.

An angel is a spiritual creature created by God without a body for the service of Christendom and the church.

I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.

First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people.

If you are going to do something wrong at least enjoy it.

Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense.

Extremists think 'communication' means agreeing with them.

Hope is ambiguous, but fear is precious.

A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after theyre dead.

The purpose of life is not to be happy but to matter to be productive to be useful to have it make some difference that you have lived at all.

Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate, and play games - but not with pleasure.

The purpose of life is not to be happy "but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.

Without feeling abashed by my ignorance, I confess that I am absolutely unable to say. In the absence of an appearance of learning, my answer has at least one merit, that of perfect sincerity.

That a great battle must soon be fought no one could doubt; but, in the apparent and perhaps real absence of plan on the part of Lee, it was impossible to foretell the precise scene of the encounter.

Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.

With the absence of a flu vaccination last year, I did not take a flu shot; but there is still some immunity that carries over from year to year; but about every 30 years, there is a major change in the genetics of the flu virus.

And as far as false hope, there is no such thing. There is only hope or the absence of hope-nothing else.

The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.

Life has become the ideology of its own absence.

There is a movement to get an international criminal court in the world, voted for by hundreds of states-but with the noticeable absence of the United States of America.

I wish you to inform the Court that my absence, though deliberate, is not intended in any way to be disrespectful. Nor is it prompted by any fear of the punishment which might be inflicted on me.

Where choice begins, Paradise ends, innocence ends, for what is Paradise but the absence of any need to choose this action?

In the absence of that, I am happy to play solo, but I don't think there is any comparison.

For many Americans, including many who are employed, going to the doctor when they fall ill or become injured may not be an option because of the absence of health insurance.

The situation in the region is flammable and may explode at any moment, because of the crucial events and because of the absence of justice in executing the international legitimacy resolutions, regarding the Israeli Arab cause and the oppression on Palestinians by Israelis.

It is the maintenance of slavery by law in a state, not parallels of latitude, that makes its a southern state; and the absence of this, that makes it a northern state.

My dear, the duty that devolved wholly on you in my absence of guiding and expanding the minds of our dear children is a laborious one and a responsible one.

So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational.

I was court-martial in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.

Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the absence of human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening.

Instead, in the absence of respect for human rights, science and its offspring technology have been used in this century as brutal instruments for oppression.