All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.

Chapterhouse: Dune by Frank Herbert

Montrose's Toast:

"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his desserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all."

     - James Graham, 5th Earl of Montrose

"An armed society is a polite society."

     - Robert A. Heinlein

Minstrel Boy

"The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you shall find him.
His father's sword he hath girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.
'Land of song', said the warrior-bard,
'Though all the world betrays thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee.'

"The minstrel fell, but the foeman's chain
Could not bring that proud soul under.
The harp he loved never spoke again,
For he tore its chords asunder,
And said, 'No chains shall sully thee,
Thou soul of love and bravery.
Thy songs were meant for the proud and free,
They shall never sound in slavery.'"

     - Thomas Moore

"There's something about seeing a sunrise from the wrong side.  There is a kind of camaraderie to it when viewed with others, a feeling that few people understand what it is to see the sun rise, and set, and rise again, in one period of consciousness.  And yet, there is a vast loneliness, too... as though that sunrise separates you from the rest of humanity, permanently.  And there are few more lonely feelings than watching the sun rise from the wrong side, alone.  It's a soul-crushing weight.  Sometimes, I think this job has broken part of me."

    - The Graveyard Shift Lament, Security Officer 49F (retired)

 

"After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one."
--Cato the Elder (?)

"Friends applaud, the comedy is over. " - Beethoven On His Deathbed

"“Too young to hold on and too old to just break free and run." Jeff Buckley - Lover You Should Have Come Over

"There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there. " - Patrick Bateman.


People, for the last time, stop putting your own words in here. Until you cure cancer or marry a princess or blow up an oil tanker, nobody will care. - Ryan

The Odd Couple:

Murray: Felix took a whole bottle of pills! My God, get an ambulance!

Oscar Madison: Wait a minute, will ya? We don't even know what kind!

Murray: What difference does it make? He took a whole bottle!

Oscar Madison: Well, maybe they were vitamins! He could be the healthiest one in the room!

Some actor in a letter to Winston Churchill: Here are two tickets to my play for the opening night. Bring a friend, if you have one.
winston Churchill in a response letter: I'm dreadfully sorry but I cannot go opening night. I'l go on the second night. if you have one.

"Sometimes you have to go a long way out of your way in order to come back a short distance correctly." Edward Albee, Zoo Story.

"A man ought not to wear his good trousers when he goes out to fight for liberty and truth." Ibsen, Enemy of the People.

"What a dump!" Line delivered unforgettably by Elizabeth Taylor in the movie version of Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

"All shall be well. All shall be well. All manner of thing shall be well." Julian of Norwich.

T

"The human body can bear immeasurable pain and yet recover.
Wounds can heal.
But once your spirit is broken, everything falls apart.”  ~Palden Gyatso


"Sometimes skulls are thick. Sometimes hearts are vacant. Sometimes words don't work."  ~ James Frey

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

The Soldier
Rupert Brooke


What you lookin' at? You all a bunch of fuckin' assholes. You know why? You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say, "That's the bad guy." So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way!

Tony montana scarface

And finally........................

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!