„You nobles, you sons of my leading men, soft and dandified, trusting in your birth and your wealth, paying no attention to my command and your advancement, you neglected the pursuit of learning and indulged yourselves in the sport of pleasure and idleness and foolish pastimes. By the King of the heavens I think nothing of your nobility and your beauty. Others can admire you. Know this without any doubt; unless you rapidly make up for your idleness by eager effort, you will never receive any benefit from Charlemagne.“

„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;!“

—  Rudyard Kipling English short-story writer, poet, and novelist 1865 - 1936

Source: If: A Father's Advice to His Son

„I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot do for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian. What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture; I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the publick, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable; and what I hear of your morals, inclines me to pay regard not to what you shall say, but to what you shall prove. You may print this if you will.“

—  James Macpherson Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician 1736 - 1796

Samuel Johnson, letter to James Macpherson (20 January 1775), quoted in James Boswell Life of Johnson, Vol. I (1791), p. 449.
Criticism

„Do you think astrologists, palm readers and the like can really tell everything about you? That your personality can be read from your birth date, your hand or from sensing vibrations? Very possible.“

—  Derren Brown British illusionist 1971

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

„Professional knowledge and professional competence are the main attributes of leadership. Unless you know, and the men you command know that you know your job, you will never be a leader.“

—  Sam Manekshaw First Field marshal of the Indian Army 1914 - 2008

His lecture on leadership quoted in "Field Marshal KM Kariappa Memorial Lectures, 1995-2000", page=26

„I want to fill every part of you, breathe the air from your lungs and leave my handprints on your soul. I want to give you more pleasure than you can bear.“

—  Lisa Kleypas American writer 1964

Source: Devil in Winter

„I looked at you… and saw your goodness, your hope, and your faith. Those are what make you beautiful. So, so beautiful.

So it was't my hair?“

—  Richelle Mead, book Last Sacrifice

Variant: I looked at you... saw your goodness, your hope, and your faith. Those are what make you beautiful. So, so beautiful.
Source: Last Sacrifice

„If you do not act, the world dies, and you with it. Surely survival is worth a little effort? Unless you are so eager to retire to that dismal heaven of your Christian god?“

—  Melinda M. Snodgrass American writer 1951

Source: Queen's Gambit Declined (1989), Chapter 2 (p. 21)

„You may think that what you’d like to recapture from your youth is your looks, your physical fitness, your simple pleasures, but what you really need is the fluidity of mind you once possessed.“

—  Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War

Source: The 33 Strategies of War

„It is the same with anything - you have to learn through your own experience, paying your own way. You can't learn it from a book.“

—  Haruki Murakami, book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

„Here we are up in Caribou, which is my home as well as yours, but when you think about your home, you usually think about your house, your neighborhood, and your family, and when you look at this fragile blue ball from outer space, that’s home too. It’s everybody’s home.“

—  Jessica Meir Swedish-American marine biologist and astronaut 1977

Source: As quoted in [Burns, Christopher, Astronaut from Aroostook County will soon go on her 1st spaceflight, https://bangordailynews.com/2019/04/17/news/aroostook/astronaut-from-aroostook-county-will-soon-go-on-her-1st-spaceflight/, 26 April 2019, Bangor Daily News, April 17, 2019]

„Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it- memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey.“

—  Tad Williams novelist 1957

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 42, “Beneath the Uduntree” (p. 718).
Context: “Never make your home in a place,” the old man had said, too lazy in the spring warmth to do more than wag a finger. “Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You’ll find what you need to furnish it—memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things.” Morgenes had grinned. “That way it will go with you wherever you journey. You’ll never lack for a home—unless you lose your head, of course...”

„The glory of the king of all the kings.
You with the golden power on your brows,
You kings, I think you know not what you are.
First you shall learn yourselves: for neither light
Understandeth itself, nor darkness light.“

—  Lascelles Abercrombie Poet, academic, literary critic 1881 - 1938

Emblems of Love (1912)

„After your death, you will be what you were before your birth.“

—  Arthur Schopenhauer German philosopher 1788 - 1860

„I think, to be what you are, don't take advice from other people. Find your advice in your heart. Yes, find your advice in your heart. It's yours and you keep it. And if you think it's helpful to other people… then share it. I think the things we share are very important.“

—  David Manners Canadian-born American actor 1900 - 1998

„Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons. And they will follow you into the deepest valley.“

—  Sun Tzu ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty -543 - -495 BC

Original: (zh_Hant) 視卒如愛子，故可與之俱死。
Source: The Art of War, Chapter X · Terrain

„Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. If you look at it to admire it you are lost.“

—  Samuel Butler novelist 1835 - 1902

Improvement in Art
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting

„You see by what has happened that we are superior to you in intelligence, in size of army, and in number of supporters. Surely you were easily trapped, captured without a struggle. It is in my power to do with you what I wish when I wish. Helpless and prostrate, you lie before us now, victims of our might. But if one looks for a punishment equal to the crimes you have committed, it is impossible to find a suitable one. You murdered your revered and benevolent old emperor, the man whom it was your sworn duty to protect. The empire of the Roman people, eternally respected, which our forefathers obtained by their valiant courage or inherited because of their noble birth, this empire you shamefully and disgracefully sold for silver as if it were your personal property. But you were unable to defend the man whom you yourselves had chosen as emperor. No, you betrayed him like the cowards you are. For these monstrous acts and crimes you deserve a thousand deaths, if one wished to do to you what you have earned. You see clearly what it is right you should suffer. But I will be merciful. I will not butcher you. My hands shall not do what your hands did. But I say that it is in no way fit or proper for you to continue to serve as the emperor's bodyguard, you who have violated your oath and stained your hands with the blood of your emperor and fellow Roman, betraying the trust placed in you and the security offered by your protection. Still, compassion leads me to spare your lives and your persons. But I order the soldiers who have you surrounded to cashier you, to strip off any military uniform or equipment you are wearing, and drive you off naked. 9. And I order you to get yourselves as far from the city of Rome as is humanly possible, and I promise you and I swear it on solemn oath and I proclaim it publicly that if any one of you is found within a hundred miles of Rome, he shall pay for it with his head.“

—  Septimius Severus Emperor of Ancient Rome 145 - 211

Herodian, Book II.

„Confound you handsome young fellows! You think of having it all your own way in the world. You don't understand women. They don't admire you half so much as you admire yourselves.“

—  George Eliot, book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch

„It is at moments like these that I know my what my purpose is in life. I am here to love you, to hold you in my arms, to protect you. I am here to learn from you and to receive your love in return. I am here because there is no other place to be.“

—  Nicholas Sparks, book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle