"I want to leave something behind when I go; some small legacy of truth, some word that will shine in a dark place."
                         —Nellie McClung

"We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers." 

-Seneca

"Man is a creature who makes pictures of himself, and then comes to resemble the picture."

Iris Murdoch (as quoted by Simon Leys in NYRB)

“Don’t just survive what’s coming at you.  Shape it.”
Gen. Romeo Dallaire

"The finest people marry the two sexes in their own person."


~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Louis Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."
-- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

"If a man be gracious to strangers, it shows that he is a citizen of the world, and his heart is no island, cut off from other islands, but a continent that joins them."
-- Francis Bacon

"There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."

-- Aldous Huxley (1864-1963)

"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens."

~Carl Jung

"Don't leave it up to someone else -- you're the one who can make a difference."

"If you can give your child only one gift, let it be enthusiasm."

(Bruce Barton)

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
~Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and dragons of home under one’s skin, at the extreme corners of ones eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe."

Maya Angelou

"Children need models rather than critics."

-- Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French Philosopher

"The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere.
They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts."

-- Anatole France

"I don't like work... but I like what is in work -- the chance to find yourself. Your own reality -- for yourself, not for others -- which no other man can ever know."

-- Joseph Conrad

"The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials."

-- Chinese proverb

"The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."

-- Jack London

"Enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity."

-- Paul Goodman

"The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."

-- Charles Du Bos