No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

— The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Say it loud! I’m black and I’m proud

— “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud” by Alfred “Pee Wee” Ellis

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

— “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination” by Arthur C. Clarke

Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed.

— Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

— The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery — air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, “This is what it is to be happy.”

— The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m going to be, from one minute to another.

— Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

But stoops to conquer, and but kneels to rise.

— Letters to His Son by Lord Chesterfield, misquoting Amphitryon by John Dryden

The end is near. I hear a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it.

— “The Whisperer in Darkness” by H. P. Lovecraft

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…

— “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe