From his roots as a slave, the American Negro - sometimes sorrowing, sometimes jubilant but always hopeful - has touched, illuminated, and influenced the most remote preserves of world civilisation. I and my dance theater celebrate this trembling beauty.

I'd love to look like my mum when I am her age. She taught ballet for years, and my attitude to exercise and fitness has definitely been influenced by her. She's 84 now, and I've watched how well she has aged, and a lot of that is to do with her fantastic posture.

One thing that has influenced my personal life, my career, my attitude, the person I have become and every decision that I have made is a fact that I have been a loner as a child.

I look at a lot of artists. I'm inspired by - I suppose I shouldn't say 'inspired,' but it's not really influenced. I am inspired. Art comes from art.

I wore out the VHS of the 'Les Mis' 10th anniversary. Lea Salonga played a big part in my childhood; I was very influenced by her Eponine.

What influenced me was Tori Amos, who was unapologetic about expressing anger through music, and Sinead O'Connor. Those two in particular were really moving for me, and very inspiring, before I wrote 'Jagged Little Pill.'

Be careful on, how you use Social Media. Some people are tweeting or posting about issues that affect society for vibes , to gain more followers, political points and for interactions. They can lead you astray in doing things, that you will regret doing. You might be taking advices or being influenced by a psychopath , narcissist , egocentric or a criminal. Be careful and don't trust strangers, especially online or on the internet.

Writers have influenced thoughts, principals, viewpoints and experiences throughout history. A talented writer's pen is anointed with magic!

I've been strongly influenced, in technique as well as subject matter, by some of the early 20th-century book illustrators - Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac in particular, Burne-Jones and other Pre-Raphaelites, and the Arts-&-Crafts movement they engendered. I'm continually inspired by Rembrandt, Breughel (I've wondered whether his brilliant "Tower of Babel" had inspired Tolkien's description of Minas Tyrith), Hieronymous Bosch, Albrecht Durer, and Turner; it's not necessarily that they influence my work in any particular direction, more that their example raises my spirits, re-affirms my belief in the power of images to move and delight us, and shows me how much further I have to go, how much is possible. Having visited Venice and Florence for the first time, I am besotted with the Italian Renaissance artists - Botticelli, Bellini, da Vinci and others. Their work is calm, controlled, and yet each face and landscape contains such passion. In Botticelli's paintings, every pebble and every leaf is rendered with a religious devotion; there is reverence inherent in paying such close attention to every stone, turning painting itself into a form of worship, an act of prayer.

Will grinned. "Some of these books are dangerous," he said. "It's wise to be careful.""One must always be careful of books," said Tessa, "and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.""I'm not sure a book has ever changed me," said Will. "Well, there is one volume that promises to teach one how to turn oneself into an entire flock of sheep-""Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry," said Tessa

Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.

We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one else can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you, have not been shaped by paterfamilias or a schoolmaster, they have sprung from very different beginnings, having been influenced by everything evil or commonplace that prevailed round about them. They represent a struggle and a victory. I can see that picture of what we were at an earlier stage may not be recognisable and cannot, certainly, be pleasing to contemplate in later life. But we must not repudiate it, for it is a proof that we have really lived, that it is in accordance with the laws of life and of the mind that we have, from the common elements of life, of the life of studios, of artistic groups-assuming one is a painter-extracted something that transcends them.

From it genesis twelve hundred years ago to today, Islamic philosophy (al-hikmah; al-falsafah) has been one of the major intellectual traditions within the Islamic world, and it has influenced and been influenced by many other intellectual perspectives, including Scholastic theology (kalam) and doctrinal Sufism (al-ma'rifah or al-tasawwuf al-'ilmi) and theoretical gnosis ('irfan-i nazari).

Eccentricity is not, as some would believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.

A totally nondenominational prayer: Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that I be forgiven for anything I may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness.? Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which I may be eligible after the destruction of my body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

Opinions are the cheapest commodities on earth. Everyone has a flock of opinions ready to be wished upon anyone who will accept them. If you are influenced by "opinions" when you reach DECISIONS, you will not succeed in any undertaking.

People are naming it the Third Wave the Information Age etc. but I would say those are basically technological descriptions and this next shift is not about technology - although obviously it will be influenced and in some cases expressed by technologies.

I'm not gonna say that I hate it because I really respect Usher and I was influenced by him. But so many people compare me to him and I don't think it'll ever stop. I just want to be my own artist.

I have quite a few different Bibles. Having rejected my parents' religion I still think the King James Bible is the most important work of literature in English. None of us can help being influenced by it.

The Left is doing to America what it has done to almost everything it has deeply influenced - the arts the university religion culture minorities Europe: ruining it.

My parents leaving a third world country to a first world country and building from nothing - that's really inspiring to me and it's influenced me in a positive way.

But I would be naive not to recognize the number of musicians who tell me they have been influenced by me and sight me - as well as Alex and Neil - as a musician who has been a positive influence on their playing.

I was influenced by surrealist poetry and painting as were thousands of other people and it seems to me to have become a part of the way I write but it's not.

I'm as much influenced by Joseph Smith and the Mormons as I am more so than by Eliot. Actually I'm much more influenced by the poetry of the Mormons.