"Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath." - George Carlin
“We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living but not a life. We’ve added years to life, not life to years.” – George Carlin
"Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they've lost all incentive because we've given them too much money." - George Carlin
"Just 'cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town." - George Carlin
“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” - George Carlin
"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts."- Rachel Carson
"I do not think a day passes in my life in which I fail to look with fresh amazement at the miracle of nature." - Pablo Casals (at age 93)
“A day without laughter is a day wasted” - Nicolas Chamfort
"How absurd to try to make two men think alike on matters of religion, when I cannot make two timepieces agree." — Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.” - G.K. Chesterton
“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” ― G.K. Chesterton
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” ― Marcus Tullius Cicero
"What one has, one ought to use: and whatever he does he should do with all his might." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"The good of the people is the greatest law." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"A wise man once said that all human activity is a form of play. And the highest form of play is the search for Truth, Beauty and Love." - Arthur C. Clarke
"As I've aged, I've found the world far, far more ridiculous than I thought." - John Cleese
"Wherever you go, go with all your heart." - Confucius
"Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas." - Calvin Coolidge
"Along with love, compassion is the face of altruism. It is a feeling from deep in the heart that you cannot bear others' suffering without acting to relieve it." - His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama
“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” - Angela Davis
"Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don't yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it's actually going to be possible." - Angela Davis
“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” - Angela Davis
"We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community." - Dorothy Day
"One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion." - Simone de Beauvoir
“Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.” ― Simone de Beauvoir
“That's what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.” ― Simone de Beauvoir
"My view of human nature is that all of us are just holding it together in various ways — and that’s okay, and we just need to go easy with one another, knowing that we’re all these incredibly fragile beings." - Alain de Botton
“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.” ― Emily Dickinson
“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.” - Emily Dickinson
"We turn not older with years but newer every day." - Emily Dickinson
“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.” - Emily Dickinson
"Character – the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life – is the source from which self-respect springs." - Joan Didion
"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." - Annie Dillard
"What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov
“People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts. No animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky
"To love someone means to see him as God intended him." - Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky
"As the man said, for every complex problem there’s a simple solution, and it’s wrong.” - Umberto Eco
“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.” - Umberto Eco
"Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can't afford to lose. - Thomas Edison
"Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable." - Albert Einstein
"I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war." - Albert Einstein
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” - Albert Einstein
"My pacifism is not based on any intellectual theory but on a deep antipathy to every form of cruelty and hatred." - Albert Einstein
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." - Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower
"It is never too late to be what you might have been." - George Eliot
“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. ” - Epictetus
"If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, "He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.” - Epictetus
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” ― Epictetus
“To accuse others for one's own misfortune is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.” ― Epictetus
“He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.” - Epictetus
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” ― Epictetus
“Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.” ― Epictetus
"As in walking you take care not to tread on a nail or to twist your foot, so take care that you do not harm your Governing Principle." - Epictetus
“Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.” - Epictetus
"No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen." - Epictetus
"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." - Epicurus
"It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life." - Epicurus
"Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing." - Euripides
“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.” - William Faulkner
“In these times I don't, in a manner of speaking, know what I want; perhaps I don't want what I know and want what I don't know.” - Marsilio Ficino
"We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace." - Pope Francis
"God never gives someone a gift they are not capable of receiving. If He gives us the gift of Christmas, it is because we all have the ability to understand and receive it." - Pope Francis
“We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way.” ― St. Francis of Assisi
"Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy." - Anne Frank
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." - Anne Frank
"It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ― Viktor Frankl
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ― Viktor Frankl
Do we not know the feeling that overtakes us when we are in the presence of a particular person, [which] roughly translates as, 'The fact that this person exists in the world at all, this alone makes this world, and a life in it, meaningful." - Viktor Frankl
"We all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It's our basic human right." - Aretha Franklin
"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid." - Benjamin Franklin
"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." - Benjamin Franklin
"Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence." - Erich Fromm
"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly." - R. Buckminster Fuller
"We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody." - R. Buckminster Fuller
“Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place." - R. Buckminster Fuller
"Isn't all artwork - or all decent art - a mirror? Might a great painting not even reformulate the question "what is it about" to "what am I about"? -Maria Gainza
"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” ― Mahatma Gandhi.
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi
“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.” - Gabriel García Márquez
"Even when the winds of misfortune blow, amazing things can still happen." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” ― Gabriel García Márquez (from Love in the Time of Cholera)
"I have learned that a man has the right and obligation to look down at another man only when that man needs help to get up from the ground." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"If I knew that today would be the last time I’d see you, I would hug you tight and pray the Lord be the keeper of your soul.
"If I knew that this would be the last time you pass through this door, I’d embrace you, kiss you, and call you back for one more.
"If I knew that this would be the last time I would hear your voice, I’d take hold of each word to be able to hear it over and over again.
"If I knew this is the last time I see you, I’d tell you I love you, and would not just assume foolishly you know it already."
“Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.” - Kahlil Gibran
"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens." - Khalil Gibran
"I tell law students…if you want to be a true professional, you will do something outside yourself… something that makes life a little better for people less fortunate than you." - Ruth Bader Ginsberg
"Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"The most basic fact of aesthetic experience...that delight lies somewhere between boredom and confusion." - Ernst Gombrich
“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make.” — Jane Goodall
"It is by losing ourselves in inquiry, creation & craft that we become something. Civilization is a continual gift of spirit: inventions, discoveries, insight, art. We are citizens, as Socrates would have said, & we have it available as our own." - Paul Goodman
"Suppose you had the revolution you are talking and dreaming about. Suppose your side had won, and you had the kind of society you wanted. How would you live, you personally, in that society? Start living that way now!" - Paul Goodman
"Children know something that most people have forgotten. Children possess a fascination with their everyday existence that is very special and would be very helpful to adults if they could learn to understand and respect it." - Keith Haring
"I feel that the dormant goodwill in people needs to be stirred. People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently or to help others, to place common interests above their own, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence." - Vaclav Havel
“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” - Nathaniel Hawthorne
"We don't know why art should exist or why a few human beings should be capable of it and even fewer of doing so with enduring excellence." - Shirley Hazzard
“God may have made the world for the last week in September.” - Peter Heller, Celine
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end." - Ernest Hemingway
"The greatest movement for social justice our country has ever known is the civil rights movement and it was totally rooted in a love ethic." - bell hooks
"Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent." - Victor Hugo
"A good day starts in the morning" (Il buongiorno si vede dal mattino) - Italian proverb
“A mother understands what a child does not say.” — Jewish proverb
"I live in the United States, but I do not know exactly where. My address is wherever there is a fight against oppression." - Mary Harris Jones ("Mother Jones")
"The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, it will tell you." - Carl Jung
"The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are." - Carl Jung
“There is nothing more precious than laughter–it is strength to laugh and lose oneself, to be light.” -Frida Kahlo
"At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can." - Frida Kahlo
“We're so young. We can't, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it's all we have.” - Marina Keegan
“I want enough time to be in love with everything.” - Marina Keegan
"What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over." - Marina Keegan
"We have these impossibly high standards and we'll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that's okay." - Marina Keegan
“It's not quite love and it's not quite community; it's just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team." - Marina Keegan
"The best practice is to follow the advice posted on every railroad crossing: Stop. Look. Listen." - Sam Keen
"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us." - Helen Keller
"Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." - John F. Kennedy
“Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now." - Jack Kerouac
“When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?" - John Maynard Keynes
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Life's most persistent and urgent question is, "What are you doing for others?" - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” - Lao Tzu
"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love." - Lao Tzu
"Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." - Lao Tzu
“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” ― Lao Tzu
"Respond to anger with virtue. Deal with difficulties while they are still easy. Handle the great while it is still small." - Lao Tzu
“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” ― Lao Tzu
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." - Lao Tzu
"From wonder into wonder existence opens." - Lao Tzu
"Kind words elicit trust. Kind thoughts create depth. Kind deeds bring love." - Lao Tzu
"If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done. Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal." - Bruce Lee
“There is only one who is all powerful, and his greatest weapon is love.” ― Stan Lee
Stan Lee, Marvel Comics "superhero", passed away at age 95 on Nov 12, 2018
"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not ok, it's not the end." - John Lennon
“You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.” - John Lennon ("Imagine")
"Imagine all the people living life in peace." - John Lennon
“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” ― John Lubbock
"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." - Martin Luther
"If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"In the realm of human destiny, the depth of man's questionings is more important than his answers." - Andre Malraux
“Man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.” - Nelson Mandela
“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” - Nelson Mandela
"A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination." - Nelson Mandela
“I never lose. I either win or learn.” - Nelson Mandela
"You know you have loved someone when you have glimpsed in them that which is too beautiful to die." - Gabriel Marcel
“I almost think that hope is for the soul what breathing is for the living organism. Where hope is lacking the soul dries up and withers...” - Gabriel Marcel
“The truth of art lies in its power to break the monopoly of established reality to define what is real.” ― Herbert Marcuse
“Not every problem someone has with his girlfriend is necessarily due to the capitalist mode of production.” ― Herbert Marcuse
“In times of division and strife, build bridges to the hearts of those clouded by anger, hurt, hatred, and ignorance, so you can help open and understand their minds and hearts, and they can understand yours.”― Imania Margria
“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.” - Bob Marley
"Live the life you love. Love the life you live." - Bob Marley
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx
"Surround yourself with people who make you happy. People who make you laugh, who help you when you’re in need. People who genuinely care. They are the ones worth keeping in your life. Everyone else is just passing through." - Karl Marx
"We are, all of us, molded and remolded by those who have loved us, and though that love may pass, we remain none the less their work--a work that very likely they do not recognize, and which is never exactly what they intended." ~ Francois Mauriac
"No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever." - Francois Mauriac
"To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others." -Francois Mauriac
"Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them." - Andre Maurois
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead
"When you see God in everyone, then they see God in you." - Thomas Merton
"You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope." - Thomas Merton
“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image." - Thomas Merton
"Perhaps it is curiosity — about anything and everything — that made me the writer I am…With this attribute goes another which I prize above everything else, and that is the sense of wonder. No matter how restricted my world may become I cannot imagine it leaving me void of wonder." - Henry Miller
“Christmas is the keeping-place for memories of our innocence.” - Joan Mills
"The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will." - Michel de Montaigne
"Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the extremest of all vices." - Michel de Montaigne
"I know that the arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of the world to the other" - Michel de Montaigne
"The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things." - Michel de Montaigne
“Every man has within himself the entire human condition” - Michel de Montaigne
"It is an absolute and virtually divine perfection to know how to enjoy our being rightfully." - Michel de Montaigne
“There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.” - Michel de Montaigne
"The secret to aging is to face the loss of youthful beauty and strength, and from there use all the resources we have to be creative, positive, and optimistic." - Thomas Moore
"When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else." - Toni Morrison
"If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression." - Toni Morrison
“At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough.” - Toni Morrison
“I get angry about things, then go on and work.” - Toni Morrison
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe" - John Muir
"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." - John Muir
"A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life.” - Lewis Mumford
"Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self." - Iris Murdoch
"You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming." - Pablo Neruda
“Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.” – Joseph Fort Newton
“Without music, life would be a mistake.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
“We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
"Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone's face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love?' These are the real questions." - Henri Nouwen
“It's always the old to lead us to the war, It's always the young to fall..." - Phil Ochs
"Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable." - Mary Oliver
“It must be a great disappointment to God if we are not dazzled at least ten times a day.” ― Mary Oliver
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
"There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” - George Orwell, "1984"
"The difference [between pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven and a regular pizza oven] is that between ethereal immortality and pedestrian bread seasoned with ignominy." - Scott Paglia, Quora website
“It makes you wonder. All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how.” - Ann Patchett, Bel Canto
“Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.” - Ann Patchett
“Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted.” - Sylvia Plath
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." - Plato
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” – Plato
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." - Plutarch
"The whole of life is but a moment of time. It is our duty, therefore to use it, not to misuse it." - Plutarch
"An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics." - Plutarch (c. 100 A.D.)
"To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future." - Plutarch
"This is the power of art: The power to transcend our own self-interest, our solipsistic zoom-lens on life, and relate to the world and each other with more integrity, more curiosity, more wholeheartedness.” - Maria Popova
"The object of human communication is not the exchange of information but the exchange of understanding." - Maria Popova
"To understand and be understood, those are among life's greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them." - Maria Popova
"How you love, how you give, and how you suffer is just about the sum of who you are...Seek people who love and give generously, who have the strength to suffer without causing damage." - Maria Popova
"She was who she should be in this world, without once ever worrying about what that meant." - Richard Powers (Bewilderment)
"As I grow to understand life less and less, I grow to love it more and more." - Jules Renard
“In the mother’s eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child reads the message: ‘You are there!’ ” —Adrienne Rich
“If you are trying to transform a brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.” - Adrienne Rich
“My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
so much has been destroyed
I have to cast my lot with those
who age after age, perversely,
with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.” - Adrienne Rich
“When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke
"If you want to be successful, it's just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing." - Will Rogers
"The Republican Convention opened with a prayer. If the Lord can see His way clear to bless the Republican Party the way it's been carrying on, then the rest of us ought to get it without even asking." - Will Rogers (1928)
"Happiness is not a goal. It's a by-product of a life well lived." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself." - Eleanor Roosevelt
“Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just one step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
“Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, ‘It can’t be done.’ ” - Eleanor Roosevelt
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt (1937)
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Teddy Roosevelt
"Those people who treat politics and morality separately will never understand either of them." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Be impeccable with your word...
"Don't take anything personally...
"Don't make assumptions...
"With life as short as a half-taken breath, don't plant anything but love." - Rumi
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind." - Bertrand Russell
If thou hast no sympathy for the troubles of others, thou art unworthy to be called by the name of "man" - Saadi
"The sons of Adam are limbs of each other, Having been created of one essence.
When the calamity of time affects one limb The other limbs cannot remain at rest.
If thou hast no sympathy for the troubles of others
Thou art unworthy to be called by the name of a human."
- Saadi (Inscription at the United Nations building)
"My activism did not spring from being black...The racial injustice that was present in this country during my youth was a challenge to my belief in the oneness of the human family." - Bayard Rustin
"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.” - Carl Sandburg
"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval." - George Santayana
“There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.” - Jean-Paul Sartre
"I am life that wills to live in the midst of other life that wills to live." - Albert Schweitzer
"Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity." - Seneca
“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.” – Seneca
"All cruelty springs from weakness." - Seneca
"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable." - Seneca
"Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms — you’ll be able to use them better when you’re older." - Seneca
“Every night before going to sleep, we must ask ourselves: what weakness did I overcome today? What virtue did I acquire?” — Seneca
"One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing." - Seneca
"Doubt is a thief that often makes us fear to tread where we might have won." - William Shakespeare
"There is but one solution to the intricate riddle of life: to improve ourselves, and contribute to the happiness of others." - Mary Shelley, "The Last Man"
"Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life." - Hugh Sidey
"Before you open your mouth to speak, ask yourself three questions: is it true? is it kind? is it necessary?" - Sisters of Mount Scholastica Benedictine Monastery
“We all carry it within us: supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted, and cannot be destroyed.” - Huston Smith
"Wonder is the beginning of wisdom" - Socrates
"The search for meaning is in how you live your life but also in how you describe it and what else is around you." - Rebecca Solnit
“To be hopeful means to be uncertain about the future, to be tender toward possibilities, to be dedicated to change all the way down to the bottom of your heart.” - Rebecca Solnit
"Every minute of every hour of every day you are making the world, just as you are making yourself, and you might as well do it with generosity and kindness and style." - Rebecca Solnit
"How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward. (Qué hermoso es no hacer nada y luego descansar)" - Spanish proverb
“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.” - Wallace Stevens
"The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy. We can all sense a mysterious connection to each other." - Meryl Streep
"Punk rock isn't something you grow out of. Punk rock is an attitude, and the essence of that attitude is 'give us some truth'. " - Joe Strummer
“Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.” - Shunryu Suzuki
"When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him." - Jonathan Swift
"The artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn’t look for harmony but would simply live in it." - Andrei Tarkovsky
"All things seem possible in May" - Edwin Way Teale
"The most telling and profound way of describing the evolution of the universe would undoubtedly be to trace the evolution of love." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
"The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope.” ― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
"We are one, after all, you and I. Together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.”- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
"The most satisfying thing in life is to have been able to give a large part of one's self to others." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” - Alfred Lord Tennyson
"You believe that easily which you hope for earnestly." - Terence (Publius Terentius Afer)
“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.” - Mother Theresa
"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy." - Thich Nhat Hanh
"When you love someone, you have to offer that person the best you have. The best thing we can offer another person is our true presence." - Thich Nhat Hanh
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” - Henry David Thoreau
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." - Henry David Thoreau
"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." - Henry David Thoreau
"My piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat." - Leo Tolstoy
"Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know." - Leo Tolstoy
"One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken." - Leo Tolstoy
“In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.” – Leo Tolstoy
“There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.” – Leo Tolstoy
“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.” - Leo Tolstoy
"Kindness enriches our life; with kindness mysterious things become clear, difficult things become easy, and dull things become cheerful." - Leo Tolstoy
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” —Harriet Tubman
"Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world." - Desmond Tutu
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." - Desmond Tutu
"God's dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion." - Desmond Tutu