"Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us." Voltaire
"Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call genius." Alexander Hamilton
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity." Albert Einstein
"They who know of no purer source of truth, who traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage towards it fountain-head." Henry David Thoreau
"Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury--to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for every one, best for both the body and the mind." Albert Einstein
"It's an awfully unimaginative person who can think of only one way to spell a word." Mark Twain
"When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind." Leonardo da Vinci
"One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year. He only is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with worry, fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Great minds discuss ideas;
Average minds discuss events;
Small minds discuss people." (Unknown)
"The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurements anew every time he saw me, while all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me." George Bernard Shaw
"The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life." Robert Louis Stevenson
"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinions. It is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then--to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn." Winston Churchill
"Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." John Milton, "Areopagitica" (1644)
"Vision is the art of seeing things invisible." Jonathan Swift
"Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir, and there are many victories worse than a defeat." George Eliot, "Janet's Repentance"
Thought from John Milton about a spring day.
"In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out, and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth." John Milton, "Tractate of Education" (1644)
"The path of duty lies in what is near, and man seeks for it in what is remote." Mencius, "Works"
"The superior man [person] is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions." Confucius, "The Confucian Analects"
"If you should not be forgotten,
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worthy reading,
Or do things worth the writing." Benjamin Franklin,
"Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can." John Wesley's Rule
"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." Horace Mann, Commencement Address, Antioch College, 1859.
"One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." Andre Gide
"All deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea, while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore." Herman Melville
"We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it." George Bernard Shaw
"Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason"
"The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it." Laurence Sterne, "Sermon"
"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind." Samuel Johnson, "The Rambler"
"There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor a more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman." Henry Fielding, "Amelia"
"Work as if you were to live a hundred year. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow." Benjamin Franklin, "Poor Richard's Almanac"
"That which is easy is rarely ever excellent." (Unknown)
"If you don't learn from your mistakes, what's the use of making them?" (Unknown)
"The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile." Plato
