Because my only love, the only value I care to live for, is that which has never been loved by the world, has never won recognition or friends or defenders: human ability. That is the love I am serving—and if I should lose my life, to what better purpose could I give it?

~ Ragnar Danneskjöld, Atlas Shrugged

Unlike Bill Clinton, who lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, the current president refuses to lie about his smoking (which many may regard as a more grievous offence than a sexual misdemeanour).

(Via Smokers are now New York’s most discriminated minority | Alexander Chancellor | Comment is free | The Guardian)

Film is an artificial medium which goes to considerable lengths to conceal its own artifice.

~ Richard Howells, Visual Culture

To begin with, I believe with Schopenhauer that one of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from personal life into the world of objective perception and thought; this desire may be compared with the townsman’s irresistible longing to escape from his noisy, cramped surroundings into the silence of high mountains, where the eye ranges freely through the still, pure air and fondly traces out the restful contours apparently built for eternity.

(Via The Bridge: A Science and Spirituality Resource: Principles of Research – by Albert Einstein)

Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

~ Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

We both are bright, creative people; and have honest opinions. This is what is known as feedback and it helps the artist. Let’s do this for each other.

I see the market moving in that direction and we are looking at this as well,” said K.V.S. Manian, group head, retail liabilities, Kotak Mahindra Bank. “It will take some time for retail depositors to accept it but they will get used to it.

~ Soon, no fixed interest from fixed deposits, Article in Hindustan Times.

We are to take care of ourselves — that much we can do — and give up attending to others for a time. Let us perfect the means; the end will take care of itself. For the world can be good and pure, only if our lives are good and pure. It is an effect, and we are the means. Therefore, let us purify ourselves. Let us make ourselves perfect.

~ Swami Vivekananda, Work & its Secrets

Plan B is enforcing Plan A.

John Travolta (Ryder) in The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)