"I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well-administred; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administred for a Course of Years and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other."
— Benjamin Franklin

"The key is never, never work. Nothing is more aging than work. It's not only the strain of getting up in the morning for work, but it's the resentment that settles on your face"
— Quentin Crisp

"If one starts with the anatomical difference, which even a patriarchal Viennese novelist was able to see was destiny, then one begins to understand why men and women don't get on very well within marriage, or indeed in any exclusive sort of long-range sexual relationship. He is designed to make as many babies as possible with as many different women as he can get his hands on, while she is designed to take time off from her busy schedule as astronaut or role model to lay an egg and bring up the result. Male and female are on different sexual tracks, and that cannot be changed by the Book or any book. Since all our natural instincts are carefully perverted from birth, it is no wonder that we tend to be, if not all of us serial killers, killers of our own true nature. "
— Gore Vidal

"As with our earlier worship of saints and facts, there is something silly about grown men and women striving to reduce their vision of themselves and of civilization to bean counting. The message of the competition/efficiency/marketplace Trinity seems to be that we should drop the idea of ourselves developed over two and a half millennia. We are no longer beings distinguished by our ability to think and to act consciously in order to affect our circumstances. Instead we should passively submit ourselves and our whole civilization -- our public structures, social forms and cultural creativity -- to the abstract forces of unregulated commerce. It may be that most citizens have difficulty with the argument and would prefer to continue working on the idea of dignified human intelligence. If they must drop something, they would probably prefer to drop the economists. "
— John Ralston Saul

"Hardly had Juana had time to get settled when there was a clatter in the courtyard. The night sprang into excitement; instructions were shouted, torches brought. And suddenly the doors burst open; suddenly Philip -- hot, handsome, disheveled -- strode in.

Philip was blond and sturdy; the gunpowder-train of Juana's emotions, long and dark and twisting, exploded at last. Philip's eyes must have seen, if nothing else, a girl in virginal flush, a young body of sixteen. He could hardly endure the formal presentations of the nobles. As soon as they were ended, he did what is generally referred to as commanding the nearest cleric to marry them on the spot. This person, however -- the Spaniard don Diego Villaescusa, Dean of Jaen -- it was not in Philip's power to order about. But the fact that it must have been Juana who gave the command only serves to underline the mutuality of their haste and hunger. The Dean did as he was bidden; the ignited youngsters kneeled; Philip hurried Juana out. In a room on the rez de chaussee overlooking the turbulent river they tore off their clothes. Someone had managed to get a gilded crucifix nailed on the ceiling above the bed -- surely one of the unnoticed ornaments (and, as things turned out, one of the most inappropriate) ever put up."
— Townsend Miller