"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him."

-Niccolò Machiavelli

“It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity no to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills.”

-Simone de Beauvoir

"Beware of those who seek constant crowds; they are nothing alone."

-Charles Bukowski

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”

-Leo Tolstoy

"You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes or their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear."

-Oscar Wilde

"At one and the same time, therefore, society is everything and society is nothing. Society is the most powerful concoction in the world and society has no existence whatsoever."

-Virginia Woolf