Alfred Yiu is here to help you get through your exams. A graduate of the University of Hong Kong, he has 15 years' experience in tutoring students for HKCEE and A-level exams and has also written English textbooks. Besides good journalistic ideas, there is a large reservoir of quotations by wise men that are particularly useful to AS Level writing topics. Below are some good examples: Weak minds have a penchant for excuses and inertia. Man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty. He has the way but never the will to do it. Words are cheap and intent needs to be measured by results. Nothing is impossible to a willing mind. The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Does capital punishment tend to the security of the people? By no means. It hardens the hearts of men, and makes the loss of life appear light to them, and it renders life insecure, inasmuch as the law holds out that property is of greater value than life. In charity there is no excess. The living need charity more than the dead. It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. To be content with little is difficult; to be content with much, impossible. If poverty is the mother of crime, stupidity must be its father. Before the development of modern transportation and communication, half the world didn't know how the other half lived. Today, in our enlightened age, half the world doesn't care. The disheartening thing about the average diet is it does so much for the willpower and so little for the waistline. Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact. What makes equality such a difficult business is that we only want it with our superiors. Euthanasia is a long, smooth-sounding word, and it conceals its danger as long, smooth words do, but the danger is there, nevertheless. The prime goal of treatment is to alleviate suffering, and not to prolong life. And if your treatment does not alleviate suffering, but only prolongs life, treatment should be stopped. To save a man's life against his will is the same as killing him. At every step the child should be allowed to meet the real experiences of life; the thorns should never be plucked from his roses. Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true. Fast drivers get everywhere a little sooner - even the cemetery. The formula for failure: try to please everyone.