Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.

There are any number of magical creatures, mostly female, whose singing can bring about horror and death. Sirens, undines, banshees, Bananarama tribute bands...

Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.

Base Ball to be played thoroughly requires the possession of muscular strength great agility quickness of eye readiness of hand and many other faculties of mind and body that mark the man of nerve.

I had no doubts I could go to the pole. I may not be as strong but I make up for physical strength in other areas like steadiness and not panicking under stress.

You know what I like to do on a Sunday morning? Clean my house. I really enjoy it it's my ritual. I require tidiness actually. I have to have everything spotless before I can relax.

Men become civilized not in proportion to their willingness to believe but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.

There's only one thing harder than living in a home with an adolescent - and that's being an adolescent. The moodiness the volatility the wholesale lack of impulse control all would be close to clinical conditions if they occurred at another point in life. In adolescence they're just part of the behavioral portfolio.

Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul as clemency and readiness to forgive.

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

Worry does not mean fear but readiness for the confrontation.

That is not to say that we can relax our readiness to defend ourselves. Our armament must be adequate to the needs but our faith is not primarily in these machines of defense but in ourselves.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.