I have this feeling that immigrants unwittingly help to keep peace between nations by being scapegoats for national ills that would otherwise be blamed on neighbors.

— Agona Apell

In the world of oratory, the cunning atheist declares himself a believer to preserve access to the rich fund of tales from religious texts and to powerful concepts like God, fate, angels, the soul, & the afterlife.

— Agona Apell

I rebuke societies that impart to their flowers their cold and rigid demeanor. Flowers should not stand with the stiffness of a soldier on parade but must carry themselves with the relatedness of a dancer, their arms outstretched above a shaggy mane. Life reveals few sights as distressing as the look of flowers standing mournfully at attention unstirred by the kisses of a million bees. This infection of uncomely reserve is the handiwork of somber gardeners bred in somber societies who will not consider their work done till their flowers exude in aspect that stiffness they esteem. They forget that God intended that we mingle with flowers and not merely admire them from afar. But there is a look in a fastidiously manicured garden that makes me keep my distance, a look that draws my eyes but scorns my touch, and that is why I condemn them.

— Agona Apell

It is not courage that makes us speak the truth, but it is a hunger for truth that makes us courageous

— Agona Apell

It is only in grammar that the mighty can be bound by rules made by the humble

— Agona Apell

It is through aversion to hardship that great ideas are born, but it is only through acceptance of it that these ideas can be implemented

— Agona Apell

It's by stooping that fingers create a fist, and by standing tall that they give us open palms.

— Agona Apell

Men who attain great heights always have few friends but many admirers, while those who ply the lower reaches of fortune often have many friends but scarcely an admirer in sight

— Agona Apell

Might without right makes blight

— Agona Apell

People of great faith are almost always lacking in reason, while people possessed of great reason often suffer from a pitiful lack of faith. So it always happens that people of great faith can move the world but cannot steer it, while people possessed of great reason excel at steering the world but are hopeless at moving it

— Agona Apell