Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.

I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.

Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?

We all like to think the world ends when we do. The truth is our acquaintances, our friends, and our loved ones all live on, and through them, so do we. It's not about what you had, but what you gave. It's not about how you looked, but how you lived. And it's not just about being remembered. It's about giving people a good reason to remember you.

Marius and Cosette were in the dark in regard to each other. They did not speak, they did not bow, they were not acquainted; they saw each other; and, like the stars in the sky separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing upon each other.

Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since ? on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to displace with your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!

Your law may be perfect your knowledge of human affairs may be such as to enable you to apply it with wisdom and skill and yet without individual acquaintance with men their haunts and habits the pursuit of the profession becomes difficult slow and expensive.

Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.

To become properly acquainted with a truth we must first have disbelieved it and disputed against it.

The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description one must travel through it one's self to be acquainted with it.

Everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel he ends by having many acquaintances but no friends.

Harmony is an obscure and difficult musical science but most difficult to those who are not acquainted with the Greek language because it is necessary to use many Greek words to which there are none corresponding in Latin.

From my earliest acquaintance with the science of political economy it has been evident to my mind that capital was the product of labor and that therefore in its best analysis there could be no natural conflict between capital and labor.

A powerful attraction exists therefore to the promotion of a study and of duties of all others engrossing the time most completely and which is less benefited than most others by any acquaintance with science.

We all respect sincerity in our friends and acquaintances but Hollywood is willing to pay for it.

There is so much of good in human nature that men grow to like each other upon better acquaintance and this points to another way in which we may strive to promote the peace of the world.

Bluegrass has brought more people together and made more friends than any music in the world. You meet people at festivals and renew acquaintances year after year.

In the course of transferring all my CDs to my iPod I have found myself wandering the musical hallways of my past and reacquainting myself with music I haven't listened to in years.

Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty and leave nether room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.

The study of history and philosophy accompanied by some acquaintance with art and literature should be for lawyers and engineers as well as for those who study in arts faculties.

A man acquainted with history may in some respect be said to have lived from the beginning of the world and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.

I choose my friends for their good looks my acquaintances for their good characters and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

We need two kinds of acquaintances one to complain to while to the others we boast.

I came to Venice for the first time in 1968 and was lucky enough to make the acquaintanceship and then the friendship of two Venetians Roberta and Franco who remain my best friends here after almost 50 years.