Sydney Smith

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves obscure men whose timidity prevented them from making a first effort.

Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.

Boston is an oasis in the desert, a place where the larger proportion of people are loving, rational and happy.

My first career ambitions involved turning into a boy; I intended to be either a railway guard or a knight errant.

Shaft was a pop culture figure along t he lines of, I guess, Dirty Harry - except that he wasn't as much of a racist. So yeah, I was always a fan.