I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.
— Francois-Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues
signed up for an exercise class and was told to wear loose-fitting clothing. If I HAD any loose-fitting clothing, I wouldn't have signed up in the first place!
Japan was already defeated ... dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary. I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was no longer necessary to save American lives.
— General Dwight D.Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and later US President.
Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.
— Richard Nixon, "Real Peace", 1983
Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor.
— A pirate, from St. Augustine's "City of God"
Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.