Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence.

Simple and brave, his faith awoke Ploughmen to struggle with their fate; Armies won battles when he spoke, And out of Chaos sprang the state.

Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible.

The Fox and the Goat A fox one day fell into a deep well and could find no means of escape. A Goat, overcome with thirst, came to the same well, and seeing the Fox, inquired if the water was good. Concealing his sad plight under a merry guise, the Fox indulged in a lavish praise of the water, saying it was excellent beyond measure, and encouraging him to descend. The Goat, mindful only of his thirst, thoughtlessly jumped down, but just as he drank, the Fox informed him of the difficulty they were both in and suggested a scheme for their common escape. If, said he, you will place your forefeet upon the wall and bend your head, I will run up your back and escape, and will help you out afterwards. The Goat readily assented and the Fox leaped upon his back. Steadying himself with the Goat's horns, he safely reached the mouth of the well and made off as fast as he could. When the Goat upbraided him for breaking his promise, he turned around and cried out, You foolish old fellow! If you had as many brains in your head as you have hairs in your beard, you would never have gone down before you had inspected the way up, nor have exposed yourself to dangers from which you had no means of escape. Look before you leap.

A sweater is usually put on a child when the parent feels chilly.

"Obvious" is the most dangerous word in mathematics.

The only way to have a friend is to be one. -Ralph Waldo Emerson.

If you had your life to live over again--you'd need more money.

When you become senile, you won't know it.

Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.

What you cannot enforce, do not command.

There is nothing wrong with people possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess people.

Luxury is the first, second and third cause of the ruin of republics. It is the vampire which soothes us into a fatal slumber while it sucks the lifeblood of our veins.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Opportunity is often difficult to recognize; we usually expect it to beckon us with beepers and billboards. -Unknown.

A person is grown up not when they can take care of themselves, but when they can take care of others.

At about six in the morning of July 3, 1860, while I was watering my petunias, and thinking of nothing in particular, I perceived coming towards me, a tall, beardless, fair-haired young fellow, wearing a German cap and gold-rimmed spectacles.

Zealous, not modest.

Bigotry's birthplace is the sinister back room of the mind where plots and schemes are hatched for the persecution and oppression of other human beings.

Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167 Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689 We have all been inoculated with Christianity, and are never likely to take it seriously now! You put some of the virus of some dreadful illness into a man's arm, and there is a little itchiness, some scratchiness, a slight discomfort--disagreeable, no doubt, but not the fever of the real disease, the turning and the tossing, and the ebbing strength. And we have all been inoculated with Christianity, more or less. We are on Christ's side, we wish him well, we hope that He will win, and we are even prepared to do something for Him, provided, of course, that He is reasonable, and does not make too much of an upset among our cozy comforts and our customary ways. But there is not the passion of zeal, and the burning enthusiasm, and the eagerness of self-sacrifice, of the real faith that changes character and wins the world.