"Those who doubt themselves most generally err least."

-- Samuel Richardson

“The statistics of suicide show that, for non-combatants at least, life is more interesting in war than in peace.”
“In a word, literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book-friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. The things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared with their "large loves and heavenly charities.”
“[talking about word "homophobia":] I myself donÂ´t like "gays" - and let me stress that I don't consider that word a synonym for "homosexual" - in the same way that I don't like Communists and Feminists as advocates of a harmful and stupid ideology. But have no fear of them.”
“If you have the freedom to fly, why not take the scenic route!”
“The Star Trek computer doesn't seem that interesting. They ask it random questions, it thinks for a while. I think we can do better than that.”
“[The heart is] really a fascinating organ. It's about the only organ in the body that you can really witness its function. Doing things. And so on. Some of the other organs you can witness, like the intestines, will have this sort of peristaltic motion. But nothing that can compare with the activity of the human heart.”
“I often think how celebrated I am. / It is difficult not to think how celebrated I am. / And if I think how celebrated I am / They know who know that I am new / That is I knew I know how celebrated I am / And after all it astonishes even me.”
“The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces.”

Source : "Essay on the Literary Character" by Isaac D'Israeli, Preface p. xxix, and Vol. I, p. 187, 1795.

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