The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. 

~ Steve Biko, anti-apartheid activist (18 Dec 1946-1977) 

Contentment is, after all, simply refined indolence. 

~ Thomas Chandler Haliburton, author, judge, and politician (17 Dec 1796-1865) 

Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.

~ Paulo Coelho

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. 

~ Margaret Mead, anthropologist (16 Dec 1901-1978) 

I think you can have 10,000 explanations for failure, but no good explanation for success.

~ Paulo Coelho

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

~ Henry David Thoreau

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? 

~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (11 Dec 1918-2008) 

Fame is a bee.

It has a song 

It has a sting 

Ah, too, it has a wing. 

~ Emily Dickinson, poet (10 Dec 1830-1886) 

The mind is its own place, and in itself, Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. 

~ John Milton (9 Dec 1608-1674) 

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. 

~ Noam Chomsky, linguistics professor and political activist (b. 7 Dec 1928) 

A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order. 

~ Jean-Luc Godard, film director (b. 3 Dec 1930) 

The question is whether or not you choose to disturb the world around you, or if you choose to let it go on as if you had never arrived. 

~ Ann Patchett, writer (b. 2 Dec 1963)