"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“The basic difference between being assertive and being aggressive is how our words and behaviours affect the rights and well being of others.”
- Sharon Anthony Bower, author

"God is hiding in the world. Our task is to let the divine emerge from
our deeds."
- Abraham Joshua Heschel

"All creatures bring into this world the memory of justice."
- J. M. Coetzee

"First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do."
~ Epiticus

"Be proud to be a Size Hero, not a size zero!"
~ Gok Wan

"Time on your hands, your self on your mind."
~ English Saying

"Life is not holding a good hand; Life is playing a poor hand well."
-- Danish proverb

"Not the owner of many possessions will you be right to call happy: he
more rightly deserves the name of happy who knows how to use the Gods'
gifts wisely and to put up with rough poverty, and who fears dishonor
more than death."
-- Horace (65-8 BC)

"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the
winds long to play with your hair."
- Kahlil Gibran

"I must learn to love the fool in me - the one who feels too much,
talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often,
lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and
breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that
utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant who I also harbor and who
would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my
fool."
~ Theodore I. Rubin

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy that is translated
through you into action. And because there is only one you in all time,
this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through
any other medium - the world will not have it. It is not your business
to determine how good it is, now how valuable, nor how it compares with
other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and
directly, to keep the channel open."
- Martha Graham

"Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky.
Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is
self-discipline and self-knowledge. It's the sure footedness that comes
with having proved you can meet life."
-- Ann Landers

"Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."
-- Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English Poet

"Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of pleasures,
costs nothing, and conveys much."
-- Erastus Wiman

"Judgement comes from experience, and great judgement comes from bad
experience."
-- Robert Packwood

"Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional
glance towards the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful
scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point."
-- Harold B. Melchart

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

"The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist."
-- J. Harold Wilkins

"Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first
be overcome.
-- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

"If you have not often felt the joy of doing a kind act, you have
neglected much, and most of all yourself.
-- A. Neilen

"May we see that we could have been born as each other."
~ Vickram Seth, in "Two Lives: a Memoir"

"If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways"
- Daniel Quinn

"A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to
blame someone else."
-- John Burroughs

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done
without hope and confidence."
-- Helen Keller

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."
-- Beverly Sills

"As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey."
-- Thomas A. Edison

"The height of your accomplishments will equal the depth of your
convictions."
-- William F. Scolavino

"I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be
honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count,
to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at
all."
-- Leo C. Rosten (1908-1977) American Writer

"To be alive, to be able to see, to walk,...it's all a miracle."
-- Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982) Polish Pianist

"To live at this time is an inestimable privilege, and a sacred
obligation devolves upon you to make right use of your opportunities."
-- Grenville Kleiser

"The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost
all your money."
-- Bernard Meltzer

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved with it as he who
helps to perpetuate it.  He who accepts evil without protesting against
it is really cooperating with it. "
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

"Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the
requisites for success."
-- Alonzo Newton Benn

"I searched through rebellion, drugs, diets, mysticism, religions,
intellectualism and much more, only to begin to find...that truth is
basically simple - and feels good, clean and right."
-- Chick Corea

"Life leaps like a geyser for those willing to drill through the rock
of inertia."
-- Alexis Carrel

"It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject tohalf
the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for
fear of what might happen."
-- Herodotus (485 - 425BC) Greek Historian

"I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh
try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere
behind the morning."
-- J.B. Priestly (1894-1984) English Author

"Attitude determines altitude."
-- Unknown

"I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship."
— Louisa May Alcott

"Remember that if the opportunities for great deeds should never come,
the opportunities for good deeds are renewed day by day. The thing for
us to long for is the goodness, not the glory."
-- F.W. Faber

"Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls aren't there to
keep us out. The brick walls are there to show us how badly we want
things."
-Randy Pausch

"Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach
them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to
follow where they lead."
-- Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

"Courage is the greatest of all the virtues. Because if you haven't
courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.
-- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

"Decide on what you think is right, and stick to it."
-- George Eliot (1819-1880)

"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to
do."
-- Epictetus (55-135 AD) Greek Philosopher

"Blessed is he who carries within himself a God, an ideal, and obeys
it."
-- Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

"The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it, and once
you've seen it, keeping quiet and saying nothing, becomes as political
an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way you are
accountable".
- Arundhati Roy

"Babe Ruth hit more home runs than anyone; he also struck out more
often than anyone."
-- Anonymous

"He who cares wins."

"I run great risk of failing. It may be that I shall encounter ruin
where I look for reputation and a career of honor. The chances are
perhaps more in favour of ruin than of success. But, whatever may be
the chances, I shall go on as long as any means of carrying on the
fight are at my disposal."
-- Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) English Novelist

"The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be
in reality what we would appear to be."
-- Socrates (469-399 BC)

"No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and
good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being
helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness."
-- Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

"A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong,
which is but saying that he is wiser today than he was yesterday."
-- Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

"When the art is forgotten, there is no hope."
~Balkrishna Vaidya, artist, in "Painted Nation"

"Good friendships are fragile things and require as much care as any
other fragile and precious thing."
-- Randolph S. Bourne (1886-1918)

"When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability and wade into
them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen."
-- Arland Gilbert

"Don't bother about genius. Don't worry about being clever. Trust to
hard work, perseverance and determination."
-- Sir Frederick Treves (1853-1923) English Surgeon

"To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both
hands into life up to the elbows."
-- Jean Anouilh

"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person."
-- Mother Teresa (1910-1997)

"Money is a "way of keeping score in life," says T. Boone Pickens. But
that is just for those who like playing the game. The real goal is to
live with grace and dignity. You can do that with a small amount of
money...or not do it with a fortune."
-- Bill Bonner, financial journalist

"Overcoming Poverty is Not a Gesture of Charity, it is an Act of Justice"
~ Nelson Mandela

"I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore there be any
kindness I can show...let me do it now."
- William Penn

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single minute before
starting to improve the world.'
- Anne Frank

"No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted."
- Aesop

"A little kindness from person to person is better than a vast love for
all humankind."
- Richard Dehmel

"Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but
manifestations of strength and resolution."
- Kahlil Gibran

"Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine."
-- Lord Byron (1788-1824) English Poet

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."
-- George Eliot (1819-1880)

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the
strong."
~ Mahatma Gandhi

"The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of
thinking with which we created them."
~ Albert Einstein

"What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing
for this, I was training for this."
-- Epictetus (55-135 AD)

"Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy." --
Howard W. Newton

"Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life."
-- Sophia Loren

"You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips."
-- Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)

"If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your
envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears."
-- Glenn Clark

The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone
in your heart - this you will build your life by, and this you will
become."
-- James Lane Allen (1849-1925)

"Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but
they die young."
-- A.W. Pinero

"Humour is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's
superiority to all that befalls him."
-- Romain Gary (1914-1980) French Writer

"No pleasure philosophy, no sensuality, no place nor power, no material success can for a moment give such inner satisfaction as the sense of living for good purposes, for maintenance of integrity, for the preservation of self-approval."
-- Minot Simons

"The life that conquers is the life that moves with a steady resolution and persistence toward a predetermined goal. Those who succeed are those who have thoroughly learned the immense importance of plan in life, and the tragic brevity of time."
-- W.J. Davison

"Fear not for the future, weep not for the past."
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) English Poet

"He who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger."
-- Japanese proverb

"Take time to laugh - it is the music of the soul."
-- From an old English prayer

"You're only given a little spark of madness. You musn't lose it."
Robin Williams

"It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover
ability in others is the true test.
-- Elbert Hubbard

"I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I
can do something; I will not refuse to do the something I can do."
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968)

"A picture of many colors proclaims images of many thoughts."
-- Donna A. Favors

"Have the courage and the wisdom and the vision to raise a definite
standard that will appeal to the best that is in man, and then strive
mightily toward that goal."
-- Harold E. Stassen

"Man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life,
misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which
have their heroes - obscure heroes who are at times greater than
illustrious heroes."
-- Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

"It is good to dream, but it is better to dream and work. Faith is
mighty, but action with faith is mightier."
-- Thomas Robert Gaines

"You really don't become what you want. You become what you believe."
—Oprah

"I think laughter may be a form of courage. As humans we sometimes
stand tall and look into the sun and laugh, and I think we are never
more brave than when we do that."
-- Linda Ellerbee (1944- ) American Journalist

"A friend is one who sees through you and still enjoys the view."
-- Wilma Askinas (1926- ) American Author

"You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those
who can do nothing for them or to them."
-- Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990)

"If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on
walking."
-- Buddhist Proverb

"The shining spark of truth cometh forth only after the clash of
differing opinions."
~ Abdu'l-Baha (in writings of the Baha'i faith)

"When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in
our life, or in the life of another."
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968)

"Instead of always harping on a man's faults, tell him of his virtues.
Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better
self, his real self that can dare and do and win out."
-- Eleanor Porter (1868-1920) American Novelist

"The manner in which it is given is worth more than the gift."
-- Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) French Playwright

"From long familiarity, we know what honor is. It is what enables the
individual to do right in the face of complacency and cowardice. It is
what enables the soldier to die alone, the political prisoner to
resist, the singer to sing her song, hardly appreciated, on a side
street.
-- Mark Helprin, American Novelist and Writer

"For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek
out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the
hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through
it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge that you'll never
walk alone.
-- Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993)

"Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am
thankful that thorns have roses."
-- Allophones Karr

"Courage does not always roar. Sometimes, it is the quiet voice at the
end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow"."
-- Anonymous

"To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you
leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever increasing
unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is
one of the things that discipline - training - is about."
-- James Clavell, in his novel "Shogun"

"When we are mindful of every nuance of our natural world, we finally
get the picture: that we are only given one dazzling moment of life
here on Earth, and we must stand before that reality both humbled and
elevated, subject to every law of our universe and grateful for our
brief but intrinsic participation with it." (From her biography of
naturalist Eustace Conway.)
-- Elizabeth Gilbert

"Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face."
-- Anonymous

"There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down,
the other is pulling up."
-- Booker T. Washington

"Wherever there is a human being there is an opportunity for kindness."
~ Seneca

"To accomplish great things we must not only dream, but act."
~ Bill Blackman

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"
-- Robert Browning

"Some day, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the great
temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the
real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being
decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you
shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made
except by a steady, long continued process."
-- Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) American Bishop

"If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read
some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week."
-- Charles Darwin

"Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them
master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight."
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968)

"Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or
architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself."
-- Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English Writer

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared
to what lies within us."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

(on the purpose of art):
"... A human activity having for its purpose the transmission of the
highest and best feelings to which men have risen."
-- Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

"Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in
your humdrum routine, as perhaps it may be thought, the true poetry of
life."
-- Sir William Osler (1849-1919) Canadian Physician

"Children need models rather than critics."
-- Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French Philosopher

"The sages do not consider that making no mistakes is a blessing. They
believe, rather, that the great virtue of man lies in his ability to
correct his mistakes and continually make a new man of himself.
-- Wang Yang-Ming (1472-1529) Chinese Philosopher

"Alone time is when I distance myself from the voices of the world so
I can hear my own."
—Oprah Winfre

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

-- Chinese proverb

"Who else, if not you?"

"None will improve your lot If you yourself do not."
-- Bertolt Brecht, 1933

"In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong;
honour that; try to imitate it, and your faults will drop off like dead
leaves when their time comes."
-- John Ruskin (1819-1900) English Art Critic

"The abundant life does not come to those who have had a lot of
obstacles removed from their path by others. It develops from within
and is rooted in strong mental and moral fiber."

-- William Mather Lewis

The best portion of a good man's life is the little, nameless,
unremembered acts of kindness and love.

-- William Wordsworth (1770-1850) English poet

"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently."

-- Henry Ford (1863-1947)

"It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected
of him."

-- John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

"Lord, to those who hunger give bread; to those who have bread give them the hunger for justice."
~Latin American Prayer

"Judgment comes from experience, and great judgement comes from bad
experience."
-- Robert Packwood

"Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."
-- Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

"Every man stamps his value on himself... man is made great or small by
his own will."
-- J.C.F. von Schiller

"Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional
glance towards the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful
scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point."
-- Harold B. Melchart

This is very poignant to me...
"The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice
what we are for what we could become."
-- Charles Du Bos

"The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist."
-- J. Harold Wilkins

"Become the hero of your own story."
~ Obaa-san

"If you have not often felt the joy of doing a kind act, you have
neglected much, and most of all yourself."
-- A. Neilen

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."
-- Helen Keller (1880-1968)

He who reigns within himself and rules his passions, desires, and fears is more than a king.
-- John Milton (1608-1674) English Poet

"Most of us miss out on life's big prizes. The Pulitzer. The Nobel. Oscars. Tonys. Emmys. But we're all eligible for life's small pleasures. A pat on the back. A kiss behind the ear. A four-pound bass. A full moon. An empty parking space. A crackling fire. A great meal. A glorious sunset. Hot soup. Cold beer."
-- Anonymous

The world will not change until we do."
—Jim Wallis