There is no use for the incantation that Islam is a religion of peace. The incantation is false; Islam, like other religions, is theologically a religion of war and a religion of peace. In our time, it is a religion in distress, fought over, hijacked at times, by a militant breed at war with the modern world. -FOUAD AJAMI

Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries
of poverty, sickness, of captivity, would, without
this comfort, be insupportable. --Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) _The Rambler_ [1750-1752], Number 67

Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us. - Henri Matisse, 1869 - 1954

Sometimes one has simply to endure a period of depression for what it may hold of illumination if one can live through it, attentive to what it exposes or demands.
- May Sarton, 1912 - 1995

Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate. - Thomas Aquinas, 1225 - 1274

The person who takes the banal and ordinary and illuminates it in a new way can terrify. We do not want our ideas changed. - Frank Herbert