There are no second acts in American lives.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

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

Follow heaven and forsake the self.

-- Natsume Sōseki

The benefit morality gives us is economy of time and effort. The damage it does is the complete paralysis of conscience.

-- Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

The history of humanity is also a history of excavating hidden facts.

-- Seichō Matsumoto

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!

-- Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

-- Jane Austen

A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.

-- Henrik Ibsen