I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.
Lord Byron

Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure.
Lord Byron

A thousand years may scare form a state. An hour may lay it in ruins.
Lord Byron

Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
Soren Kierkegaard

A day may sink or save a realm.
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.
Steve Prefontaine

It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.
Margaret Mead

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.
Alexis de Tocqueville

In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.
Alexis de Tocqueville

The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.
Alexis de Tocqueville

You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.
Epictetus

It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I've gone and come back, I'll find it at home.
Rumi

May we not succumb to thoughts of violence and revenge today, but rather to thoughts of mercy and compassion. We are to love our enemies that they might be returned to their right minds.
Marianne Williamson

We may have bad weather in Ireland, but the sun shines in the hearts of the people and that keeps us all warm.
Marianne Williamson

The Christian missionary may preach the gospel to the poor naked heathen, but the spiritual heathen who populate Europe have as yet heard nothing of Christianity.
Carl Jung

There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war.
Reinhold Niebuhr

Caring for but never trying to own may be a further way to define friendship.
William Glasser