I have never done anything original; I simply put to practical use the discoveries of other men.

Every day sees humanity more victorious in the struggle with space and time.

I shall give Japan a good laundering.

-- Sakamoto Ryōma

Writing is only good for recording names. Swordsmanship defeats one man — that's not worth learning. I want to learn what defeats ten thousand.

-- Xiang Yu

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood... teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that heaven gave to man.

-- Miguel de Cervantes

What has been done is little — I know — compared with what remains to be done.

-- Born around 1400 in Mainz, in the Holy Roman Empire, Johannes Gutenberg

I want to adorn the neck of every woman in the world with pearls.

-- Born in 1858 to an udon noodle maker in Toba