"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul."

~John Muir

"The man who arrives at the doors of artistic creation with none of the madness of the muses would be convinced that technical ability alone was enough to make an artist. What that man creates by means of reason will pale before the art of inspired beings."

(Plato)

"Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods."

(John Muir)

"The burned hand teaches best."

J. R. R. Tolkien

"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

"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

"Intelligence is like a river, the deeper it is the less noise it makes."

-Voltaire

"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word: excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it."

(Pearl S. Buck)

"There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire,
which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which
kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity."

-Washington Irving

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

-- Aldous Huxley (1864-1963)

"I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what, in given circumstances, is to be done, and does it."

-- William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English Essayist

"Drawing is not the same as form."

(Edgar Degas)

"A person is only as big as the dream they dare to live."

~Unknown

"Something we were withholding made us weak until we found it was ourselves."

(Robert Frost)

Buckminster Fuller, on "what one person can do":

"Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary -- the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab.

It's a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it's going right by you, that it's left you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.

So I said, call me Trim Tab."

"When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."

~ Buckminster Fuller

"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)

Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.

-- J. Andrews

"There is no sensual pleasure in the world comparable to the delight
and satisfaction that a good man takes in doing good."

-- Tillotson

"Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one."

~ E. B. White

"Your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals, and then to work toward them everyday, will do more to guarantee your success than any other single factor."

Brian Tracy in The Power of Discipline

"Your work is to discover your work - and then with all your heart to give yourself to it."

(Buddha)

"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

"See the job. Do the job. Stay out of misery."

~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

“The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions not our circumstances”.

- Martha Washington

"There is only one real failure in life that is possible, and that is, not to be true to the best one knows."

-- John Farrar (1945-) Australian Composer

We have an infinite number of reasons to be happy, and a serious responsibility not to be serious."

(Maharishi Mahesh Yogi)

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

~Voltaire

"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 in our curious heritage prevail."

-- C.A. Beard

"An inconvenience is an unrecognized opportunity."

~ Confucius

"Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule."

- Buddha

“If you understand,
things are just as
they are. If you
do not understand,
things are just as
they are.”

~ Zen saying

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

~ Carl Sagan

"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)

"When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take - choose the bolder."

-- W.J. Slim

"Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing."

(William Shakespeare)

"In order to win, we pay with energy and effort and discipline. If we lose, we pay in disappointment, discontent, and lack of fulfillment."

(Maya Angelou)

"Power is the ability to do good things for others."

-- Brooke Astor

"Think of mean people like sand paper. They may scratch you and hurt you, but at the end, you come out smooth and polished and the mean person is just worn and ugly."

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

-- Joshua L. Liebman

“Life loves to taken by the lapel and told: I am with you kid. Let’s go.”

~Maya Angelou

"Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good. "

-- Calvin Coolidge

"Each time a piece goes out, I start on a new piece, so there is renewal after renewal. It's like picking a flower: Each time you pick one, a new one blooms."

~ Sam Maloof

"There is a communion between an object maker and the material he is working with. And there is a triune between the object maker, his material and his client. And then there is something much greater, that transcends into God the creator of all things, who uses our hands as his tools to make these beautiful objects...Ego destroys."

~ Sam Maloof 1916-2009

"Full lasting is the song, though he, the singer, passes."
~George Meredith

"There is no companion that is as companionable as solitude."

(Henry David Thoreau)

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

-- David Viscott

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.

-- John F. Kennedy

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

~Carl Jung

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."

-- Lao Tzu

"They know enough who know how to learn."

~Henry Brooks Adams

"In the end, it's not the space that counts, but the life you live in it."

"A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one."
~ Benjamin Franklin

"Love what you do. Believe in your instincts. And you'd better be able to pick yourself up and brush yourself off every day. While life is not always fair, it is manageable. It's a matter of attitude and confidence."
~Mario Andretti

We need a renaissance of wonder. We need to renew, in our hearts and
in our souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial
sense that life is miracle and magic.

-- E. Merrill Root (1895-1973)

"One of the great things any community can do is not teach tolerance, but live tolerance, not talk respect but live inclusivity"

- Michael Pritchard

"To copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility."

(Pablo Picasso)

"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)

"What is the reason for this attitude of the developed Nations? In the Twentieth Century self-interest, sovereignty and taking care of number one, became the primary criteria for any serious provision of support or resources to the world's trouble spots. If the country in question is of any possible strategic value to the world powers, then it seems that everything from covert operations to the outright use of overwhelming force is fair game. If not, indifference is the order of the day. To imagine that these same world powers have magically leapt ahead in this new age of humanity (as Kofi Anan named it in his seminal speech at the millennium UN General Assembly in September, 2000) could not be further from the truth. It will take the world's dedicated will and means to move from the 20th century - the century of 'Genocide' to the century of Humanity."

~ Lt.General Romeo Dallaire, the Head of Mission of the U N Chapter 6 Peace Keeping Force in Rwanda

"It is difficult to steer a parked car, so get moving."

(Henrietta Mears)

"I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail,
not to scorn human actions, but to understand them."
--Baruch Spinoza

"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."

- Buddha

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."

(Henry Ward Beecher 1813 - 1887)

Earth teach me stillness
as the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me suffering
as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility
as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring
as the mother who secures her young.
Earth teach me courage
as the tree which stands all alone.
Earth teach me limitation
as the ant which crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom
as the eagle which soars in the sky.
Earth teach me resignation
as the leaves which die in the fall.
Earth teach me regeneration
as the seed which rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself
as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness
as dry fields weep with rain.

~ Ute Prayer

"None of you is a believer until you love for all others what you love for yourself."
~ The Prophet Muhammed

"Identify yourself with the whole of mankind."
~Mohandas Gandhi

"Every man carries the entire form of the human condition."
~ Montaigne

"One true nationality is mankind."
~ H.G. Wells

Above quotations compliments of 100% Human

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

"any man who knows a thing
knows he knows not a damn, damn thing at all"

~K'naan

"I am finally beginning to learn how to paint."

(Attributed to Titian -- Tiziano Vecelli, 1485?-1576 -- at age 90, as quoted by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, January 30, 2009, at Davos)

"All this pain can't stop my believing,
And all this joy can't stop my grieving..."

~ Graham Shaw ("Drunk Again", 'Raw Shaw')

"The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart."

-- Mencius (371-291 B.C.)

"Further in, grandmother; grandfather, hold my hand,
as I go on through this life and try to understand.
The beauty of your faces I will never see again,
but I know you're with me now, leading me further in."

~ Greg Brown

"Many people believe that support is something that you give to someone you feel sorry for or that it means propping up someone who would fail unless you were there to give him a boost. But that's not the way I see it. Support is the boost you can give someone who can help himself but who needs a partner to open a window or push aside a roadblock."

-- Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's

"If you're going through Hell...keep going."

~ Winston Churchill

"The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress."

-- Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French Philosopher

"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."

~ Confucius

"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

"I am a prisoner of hope."

~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu

"Children need models rather than critics."

-- Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French Philosopher

"He taught me that one's worth as an individual lies only in your action."
~ Fali Balsara, about Mahatma Gandhi

"Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier."

- Mother Teresa

"Let the good in me
connect with the good
in others,
until all the world
is transformed through
the compelling power
of love."

-Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

"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

"Taken on the whole, I would believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time."
~ Albert Einstein

"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

"Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable."
~ Albert Einstein

"Every man has an obscure respect for courage in others, especially if it is moral courage, the rarest and most difficult sort of bravery...It makes the very brute understand that this man is more than a man."

-- Passage from Life of Christ

"The virtues which keep this world sweet and the faithfulness which keeps it steadfast are chiefly those of the average man."

-- W. Russell Bowie

"Whoever makes love grow boundless, and sets his mind for seeing the end of birth, his fetters are worn thin. If he loves even a single being, Good will follow. But the Noble One with compassionate heart for all mankind, generates abounding good".
- Buddha

"I believe with all my heart that civilization has produced nothing finer than a man or woman who thinks and practices true tolerance."

-- Frank Knox

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

-- Henry Ford (1863-1947)

"Every man stamps his value on himself... man is made great or small by his own will."

-- J.C.F. von Schiller

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

-- Paul Goodman

"Poverty is the worst form of violence."
~ Ghandi

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

-- Charles Du Bos

"Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt that the lion belongs to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size."

~Albert Einstein

"Enthusiasm is the best protection in any situation. Wholeheartedness is contagious. Give yourself, if you wish to get others."

-- David Seabury

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