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“The hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright) asks, "What is our interest in this war?" and he also asked me to explain the meaning of the expression "the balance of power."… [The] "Balance of power" means only this—that a number of weaker States may unite to prevent a stronger one from acquiring a power which should be dangerous to them, and which should overthrow their independence, their liberty, and their freedom of action. It is the doctrine of self-preservation. It is the doctrine of self-defence, with the simple qualification that it is combined with sagacity and with forethought, and an endeavour to prevent imminent danger before it comes thundering at your doors.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1854/mar/31/war-with-russia-the-queens-message in the House of Commons on the debate on war with Russia (31 March 1854). <br class="br">1850s

“American [comedy] was always stronger because you had Lucille Ball, you had Carol Burnett, you had Lily Tomlin, Gilda Radner. I came from a country where we just had Benny Hill girls. You had to run around in a bikini basically in the '80s in Britain. Then I did a sketch show and Pamela Stevenson and then (Dawn) French and (Jennifer) Saunders just shook it all up. But I grew up thinking I could be a character actress. I didn't think I could go into comedy.”

Tracey Ullman (1959) English-born actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, director, author and businesswoman

Quoted in 2015 in The Hollywood Reporter https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tracey-ullman-bbcs-female-revolution-830223

“After the Soviet Union withdrew the Red Army from Europe and split into 15 nations, and Russia held out its hand to us, we slapped it away and rolled NATO right up onto her front porch. Enraged Russians turned to a man who would restore respect for their country. Did we think they would just sit there and take it? How did bringing Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into NATO make America stronger, safer and more secure? For it has surely moved us closer to a military clash with a nuclear power.”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

“Insurrections!—The world, with its Wealth of Nations, Supply-and-demand and such like, has of late days been terribly inattentive to that question of work and wages. We will not say, the poor world has retrograded even here: we will say rather, the world has been rushing on with such fiery animation to get work and ever more work done, it has had no time to think of dividing the wages; and has merely left them to be scrambled for by the Law of the Stronger, law of Supply-and-demand, law of Laissez-faire, and other idle Laws and Un-laws.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

“Such arguments ill become us, since the time of reformation came, under Gospel light. All distinctions of nations, and privileges of one above others, are ceased; Christians are taught to account all men their neighbours; and love their neighbours as themselves; and do to all men as they would be done by; to do good to all men; and Man-stealing is ranked with enormous crimes. Is the barbarous enslaving our inoffensive neighbours, and treating them like wild beasts subdued by force, reconcilable with all these Divine precepts? Is this doing to them as we would desire they should do to us? If they could carry off and enslave some thousands of us, would we think it just?—One would almost wish they could for once; it might convince more than Reason, or the Bible.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)

“For that river of red could be the death of me.
God, give me strength and keep reminding me
That blood is thicker than water.
Oh, but love is thicker than blood.And if blood is thicker than water,
Then what are we fighting for?
We're all sons and daughters
Of something that means so much more.”

Garth Brooks (1962) American country music artist

Thicker Than Blood, written by Jenny Yates and G. Brooks.
Song lyrics, Scarecrow (2001)

“Andrew Yarranton, Gentlemen was the founder of English political economy, the first man in England who saw and said that peace was better than war, that trade was better than plunder, that honest industry was better than martial greatness, and that the best occupation of a government was to secure prosperity at home, and let other nations alone.”

Andrew Yarranton (1619–1684) English civil engineer

Patrick Edward Dove, Elements of Political Science. Edinburgh, 1854. p. 402

“The psychic entropy peculiar to the human condition involves seeing more to do than one can actually accomplish and feeling able to accomplish more than what conditions allow.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934) Hungarian American psychologist

Source: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

“More than anything, all I have ever wanted is to be close to someone. More than anything, all I have ever wanted is to feel as if I wasn't alone.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

page 80
Source: A Million Little Pieces (2003)

“Everything you do, if not in a relaxed state will be done at a lesser level than you are proficient. Thus the tensed expert marksman will aim at a level less than his/her student.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

“I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Source: The Complete Essays

“All great characters in stories are the ones who give their lives to something bigger than themselves. And in all of the stories I don't find anyone more noble than Jesus.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

“No glory of the Eternal One is higher than this, " MIGHTY-TO SAVE;" no name of God is more adorable than that of "SAVIOUR;" noplace among the servants of God can be so glorious as that of an instrument of salvation.”

William Arthur (minister) (1819–1901) Wesleyan Methodist minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 83.

“And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.”

Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Pt. III, st. 35
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

“Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

"Putting First Things First", Foreign Affairs (January 1960)

“If you are going to forgive a person, Liz decides, it is best to do it sooner rather than later. Later, Liz knows from experience, could be sooner than you thought.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Elsewhere

Source: Elsewhere

“Man loves knowledge, and the beams of truth
More welcome touch his understanding's eye
Than all the blandishments of sound his ear,
Than all of taste his tongue.”

Mark Akenside book The Pleasures of the Imagination

Book II, lines 100–103
The Pleasures of the Imagination (1744)

“And God stands winding His lonely horn,
And time and the world are ever in flight;
And love is less kind than the grey twilight,
And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Into The Twilight http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1519/, st. 4 <br class="br">The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

“Proposition 12. The diameter of the circle which divides the dark and the bright portions in the moon is less than the diameter of the moon, but has to it a ratio greater than that which 89 has to 90.”

Aristarchus of Samos ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician

p, 125
On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon (c. 250 BC)

“The traitor to humanity is the traitor most accursed;
Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod,
Than to be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to God!”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

"On the Capture of Certain Fugitive Slaves Near Washington" (1845)