To achieve lasting literature fictional or factual a writer needs perceptive vision absorptive capacity and creative strength.

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands - and then eat just one of the pieces.

I'm very old-fashioned in some ways because of my father who thought that being a public servant was an honor. Everyone must find a capacity in which they can serve because we all benefit from society.

First I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness. I admired and respected her - for her energy and commitment to others and especially for her devotion to her two boys.

The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius of erudition and of science.

When I speak of 'cycles ' I am referring to lengthy intervals of relative homogeneity if not in the resolving of problems than at least with respect to the consistency of their capacity to productively irritate.

You can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental mind-shaping driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

Christmas renews our youth by stirring our wonder. The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty for in it are born our art our science our religion.

Liberalism is a religion. Its tenets cannot be proved its capacity for waste and destruction demonstrated. But it affords a feeling of spiritual rectitude at little or no cost.