"Everything in life has meaning. The bigger the fall, the greater the lesson."
~ Oprah Winfrey

“Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."
-William Morris (1834-96)

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree..."
~ Albert Einstein

"Pa, he always said a man had to look spry for himself, because nobody else would do it for him; your opportunities didn't come knocking around, you had to hunt them up and hog-tie them."

-- Louis L'Amour, author

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
~ John Wooden ~

"There are no short cuts to any place worth going."

-- Beverly Sills

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing… the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is to do nothing."
by Eleanor Roosevelt

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

"Don’t be cool.Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort."

~ from Bruce Mau Design's "Incomplete Manifesto"

"If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more
to patient attention than to any other talent."

-- Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

"Men are respectable only as they respect."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882

"If you have some respect for people as they are, you can be more effective in helping them to become better than they are."

John W. Gardner
1912-, American Educator, Social Activist

"I respect orders but I respect myself too and I do not obey to foolish rules made especially to humiliate me."

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

"I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity."

~Albert Einstein

"The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still small voice within me."

Mahatma Gandhi

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."

~Albert Einstein

"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the word is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

~ Calvin Coolidge

"The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the Old One. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice."

~ Albert Einstein

"...the hill has not yet lifted its face to heaven that perseverance will not gain the summit of at last."

-- Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

"Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."

-- Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

"Failure is only postponed success as long as courage "coaches" ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory."

-- Herbert Kaufman

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

-- Alonzo Newton Benn

"There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you."
~ (Maya Angelou)

"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)

"Listen to your hopes instead of your fears."
~ Michelle Obama

"All high achievers plan their work and work their plan, for they are keenly aware that "luck" is most often being prepared to take advantage of a situation."

-- Unknown

"Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody."

-- Longfellow

"One thing I have learned in a long life: All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike - and yet it is the most precious thing we have."

~ Albert Einstein

"People prefer to believe what they prefer to be true."
-Sir Francis Bacon

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."
~ Albert Einstein

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."
~ Albert Einstein

"Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population."

~ Albert Einstein

"Originality and the feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle."

-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) Russian Novelist

Worth repeating...

"The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light."

~ Felix Adler

"It is harder to crack a prejudice than an atom."

~ Albert Einstein

"He who finds diamonds must grapple in mud and mire because diamonds are not found in polished stones. They are made."

-- Henry B. Wilson

"If I give you a pfennig, you will be one pfennig richer and I'll be one pfennig poorer. But if I give you an idea, you will have a new idea, but I shall still have it, too."

~ Albert Einstein

"If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."
~ Albert Einstein

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

"Nature does not bestow virtue; to be good is an art."

-- Seneca

A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.

-- English proverb

"If you think you're outclassed, you are,
You've got to think high to rise.
You've got to be sure of yourself,
Before you can win the prize."

(Author unknown)

"The nearest way to glory -- a short cut, as it were -- is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be - quoted in Cicero, 44 BC."
-- Socrates (469-399 BC)

"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) English Poet

"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."
~ Albert Einstein

"Assume a virtue, if you have it not."

~ William Shakespeare

"We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too."
~ Mairead Maguire

"One only sees well with the heart."

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, in "the Little Prince"

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy."

Albert Einstein

"What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practising for this, I was training for this."

-- Epictetus (55-135 AD) Greek Philosopher

“There are those …who enter the world in

such poverty that they are deprived of both

the means and the motivation to improve

their lot. Unless they can be touched with

the spark which ignites the spirit of

individual enterprise and determination,

they will only sink back into renewed

apathy, degradation and despair. It is for

us, who are more fortunate, to provide that

spark.”

(Aga Khan, India 1983)

"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)

A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.

~ Albert Einstein

"An inconvenience is an unrecognized opportunity."

~ Confucious


"More of me comes out when I improvise."

~ Edward Hopper

"We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had -- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he believed them to be in the wrong.

We have thrown it away; and with it, all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism."

~ Howard Zinn

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

Albert Einstein

“The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others.”

~ Albert Schweitzer

"Dominate yourself, or someone else will."

Robert Genn

"My life flows when I'm in my art."

(Jean De Muzio)

"I've seen extreme bravery from the least likely of people. Life is about the moments when it's all gone wrong. That's when we define ourselves."

-- Bear Grylls

"The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention."

-- Duguet

"I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amidst the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best inour curious heritage prevail."

-- C.A. Beard

"Any fool can know. The point is to understand."

~ Albert Eienstein

"A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
~ Albert Einstein

“The Further I go, the sorrier I am about how little I know: it is this that bothers me the most.”

(Claude Monet)

Goethe: "Boldness has genius, power and magic. Engage, and the mind grows heated. Begin, and the work will be completed."

"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

"How difficult it is to be simple."
(Vincent van Gogh)

"Brevity is the sister of talent."
(Anton Chekhov)

"Less is more."
(Robert Browning)

thanks Robert Genn!

"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away."
~ Elvis Presley

" Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values."

-- Joshua L. Liebman

"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."

~ Albert Einstein

"We have a duty and responsibility as human beings to try and make our world more tolerable and to relieve the suffering of others."

~ Dr. James Orbinski

"What is now proved was once only imagined."

-- William Blake (1757-1827) English Poet

"Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."

~ Albert Einstein

"Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half sorrow."

-- Swedish proverb

"Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom."

Hannah Arendt

"For where'er the sun does shine, And where'er the rain does fall, Babes should never hunger there, Nor poverty the mind appall."
- William Blake (1757–1827)

"A wonderful painting is the result of the feeling in your fingers. If you have the feeling of the thickness of the ink in your brush, the painting is already there before you paint. When you dip your brush into the ink you already know the result of your drawing, or else you cannot paint. So before you do something, "being" is there, the result is there. Even though you look as if you were sitting quietly, all your activity, past and present, is included, and the result of your sitting is also already there."

- D.T. Suzuki...

" It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

-- Chinese proverb

" Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. It's the
person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something
about it that makes a difference."

-- Nolan Bushnell

" If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed."

-- David Viscott

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an
invincible summer."

-- Albert Camus (1913-1960) French Writer

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree..."

~ Albert Einstein

"Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself."

-- Harvey Fierstein

"To create one's own world in any of the arts takes courage."
~ Georgia O'Keefe

"I am now quite cured of society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself."
(Emily Bronte)

"Every child comes with the message that God is not yet tired of the man."
(Rabindranath Tagore)

"Put out the trash and wash the car. Those who do so are performing miracles. Miracles are feats no one can successfully explain. Miracles are everything you do."
--David K. Reynolds

"Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself."

-- Abraham Joshua Heschel 1907-1972

"Being defeated is often only a temporary condition. Giving up is what
makes it permanent."
-- Marilyn vos Savant 1946-

"Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."
Langston Hughes

"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance
of things, but their inward significance, and this, and not the
external manner and detail, is true reality."
(Aristotle)

"Angels whisper when we walk."
(Raymond Inmon)

"Girls must be encouraged to get on (after college), to make a life
plan. It has been shown that girls with this kind of commitment are
less eager to rush into early marriage....Most of them marry, of
course, but on a much more mature basis. their marriages then are not
an escape but a commitment shared by two people that becomes part of
their commitment to themselves and society."
~ Betty Friedan

"Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft
might win by fearing to attempt."
(William Shakespeare)

"I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed."
~Jonathan Swift
(1667-1745)

'There is enough for all. The earth is a generous mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance food for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.'
~ Mr. Bourke Cockran

"I had a feeling once about Mathematics - that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me - the Byss and Abyss. But it was after dinner and I let it go."
— Winston Churchill

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our soul blossom."
---Marcel Proust

"ask the wind,
the wave,
a star,
the clock,
all that which flees,
all that which groans,
all that which rolls,
all that which sings,
all that which speaks,
ask them what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird
the clock will reply:
it is time to get drunk!;
get drunk,
and never pause for rest!
with wine,
with poetry,
or with virtue,
as you choose!"

-- Baudelaire

"It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
~ Theodore Roosevelt

"The true Axis of evil is the genius of our marketing people combined with the stupidity of our people."
~ Bill Maher

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies — "God damn it, you've got to be kind."
~ Kurt Vonnegut

"Stand in your own light. Make it shine.
- Fortune Cookie

“The colour of truth is gray.”

" People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar."
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

"I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.
Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass."

Maya Angelou