Ain't no use in preachers preaching
When they don't know what they're teaching
The weakest man be strong as Samson
When you're being held to ransom

From As Strong as Samson, Keith Reid

The peninsular Arabs of pre-Islamic and early Islamic times lived and sang in the heroic style -- tribal, nomadic, warlike, obsessed with battle and vengeance, honor and shame, death and destiny, and personal, family and tribal pride. Their poetry and legends mirror the conceptions and preoccupations of a heroic age. Muhammad, the greatest of them all, was not only a prophet; he was also an Arab hero and a warrior of noble birth.

Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West

There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe, that nature has given him something peculiar to himself.

Samuel Johnson, as quoted by James Boswell

Idleness is a disease which must be combated; but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together.

Samuel Johnson, as quoted by James Boswell

The ancient Greeks, it has been said, were too reasonable to ignore the intoxicating power of the unreasonable. They worshiped Dionysus, the god of excess and ecstasy, and they admired tragedy -- an art form that shows that human feelings are far too intense and varied to be contained by the narrow strictures of rational self-interest. Explosions of passion -- romantic and destructive, cruel and self-sacrificing, among nations as among individuals -- not only are to be expected but are central to the human spirit.

Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic Monthly (May 2003)

If the abuse be enormous, Nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.

Samuel Johnson, as quoted by James Boswell

Democracy and the free market have proven enduringly compatible only under historically unusual conditions of prosperity, or else in protected domestic settings and typically at the expense of third parties somewhere else.

Tony Judt in "America and the World", The New York Review (April 30, 2003)

Only in America By Norman Mailer

General truths are seldom applied to particular occasions.

Samuel Johnson to Joseph Baretti, as quoted by James Boswell

Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time, of that time which never can return.

Samuel Johnson to Joseph Baretti, as quoted by James Boswell

War and Its Consequences

I know not any thing more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed.

Samuel Johnson to a young friend, as quoted by James Boswell

Cosmic Doomsday

...recent experiments showed that a patient's sense of pain can increase threefold when his or her spouse is in the room.

The New Yorker, January 20, 2003, pg. 55.

When the radical idea branches out into parallel ramifications, how can a consecutive series be formed of senses in their own nature collateral?

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary as quoted by James Boswell

Pepys Online Diary

I shall rejoice to hear from you, till I can see you, and will see you as soon as I can.

Samuel Johnson to a friend, as quoted by James Boswell

It has been long observed, that men do not suspect faults which they do not commit.

Samuel Johnson, as quoted by James Boswell

Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation.

Samuel Johnson to his former patron, Lord Chesterfield, as quoted by James Boswell