1

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
-Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918- )


There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
-Edith Wharton, novelist (1862-1937)

Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.
-Erma Bombeck, author (1927-1996)

May you have...
Enough happiness to keep you sweet,
Enough trials to keep you strong,
Enough sorrow to keep you human,
Enough hope to keep you happy,
Enough failure to keep you humble,
Enough success to keep you eager,
Enough friends to give you comfort,
Enough wealth to meet your needs,
Enough enthusiasm to look forward,
Enough faith to banish depression,
Enough determination to make each day better than yesterday!
- Anonymous


The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


Charity sees the need not the cause.
-German proverb

All the world's a stage, /
And the men and women merely players: /
They have their exits and their entrances; /
And one man in his time plays many parts.
-William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)

A house is no home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.
-Sarah Margaret Fuller, author (1810-1850)


All the time a person is a child he is both a child and learning to be a parent. After he becomes a parent he becomes predominantly a parent reliving childhood.
-Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author (1903-1998)

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In seeking wisdom, the first step is silence, the second listening, the third remembering, the fourth practicing, the fifth -- teaching others.
-Ibn Gabirol, poet and philosopher (c. 1022-1058)


To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy
child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


The best cure for worry, depression, melancholy, brooding, is to go deliberately forth and try to lift with one's sympathy the gloom of somebody else.
-Arnold Bennett, novelist (1867-1931)



Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
-Will Durant, historian (1885-1981)

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Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
-Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president (1809-1865)

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Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station.
-Joseph Addison, essayist and poet (1672-1719)

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)


He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic, and philosopher (1772-1834)


Men of genius are often dull and inert in society, as a blazing meteor when it descends to earth, is only a stone.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet(1819-1892)

Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.
-Margaret Mitchell, novelist (1900-1949)

Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.
-Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
-Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)

People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.
-Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist and author(1926- )

Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.
-Natalie Clifford Barney, Author (1876-1972)

He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes.
-Chinese Proverb

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
-Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S (1809-1865)


To have and not to give is often worse than to steal.
-Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
-Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)

Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
-William Strunk, Jr., professor and author (1869-1946)

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It is a shameful thing to insult a little child. It has its feelings, it has its small dignity; and since it cannot defend them, it is surely an ignoble act to injure them.
-Mark Twain

Live a balanced life - Learn some and think some, and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
-Robert Fulghum, author (1937- )


It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
-John Andrew Holmes

A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.
-Spanish proverb

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist,and philosopher (1749-1832)

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if it were possible, speak a few reasonable words.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)



Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.
-Josh Billings,columnist and humorist (1818-1885)

The only real way to look younger is not to be born so soon.
-Charles Schulz, cartoonist (1922-2000)

My precept to all who build, is, that the owner should be an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner.
-Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 B.C)

If any man wishes to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

The most happy marriage I can picture or imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic, and philosopher (1772-1834)

Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes.
-Edgard Varese, composer (1885-1965)

No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.
-Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)

That sorrow which is the harbinger of joy is preferable to the joy which is followed by sorrow.
-Saadi, poet (c.1213-1291) [Gulistan]

One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.
-Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
-Rene Descartes, "Le Discours de la Methode," 1637

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" A problem cannot be solved at the level of awareness that created it"
- Alfred Einstein.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
-W. Somerset Maugham, novelist, dramatist, and short-story writer (1874-1965)

If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.
-Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)


Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
-John Nichols, novelist (1940- )


Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things.
-Amelia Earhart, aviator (1897-1937)

A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope.
-Epictetus, philosopher (c. 60-120)

Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things.
-Amelia Earhart, aviator (1897-1937)

It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.
-Johan Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, poet and dramatist (1759-1805)

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

To live for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.
-Robert M. Pirsig, author [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
-Edmund Hillary, mountaineer and explorer (1919- )

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
-Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 B.C.)

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The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.
-Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)

Appreciation is a wonderful thing; it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
-Voltaire, philosopher, historian, satirist, dramatist, and essayist (1694-1778)
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Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.
-Lao-Tzu, philosopher (6th century B.C.)

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
-Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (1928- )

A man there was, tho' some did count him mad /
The more he cast away, the more he had.
-John Bunyan, preacher (1628-1688) [Pilgrim's Progress]

The palest ink is better than the best memory.
-Chinese proverb

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
-Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

*****
In the midst of great joy, do not promise anyone anything. In the midst of great anger, do not answer anyone's letter.
-Chinese proverb

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
-Henry David Thoreau,naturalist and author (1817-1862)

The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.
-Peter De Vries, editor, novelist (1910-1993) [TheTunnel of Love, 1954]

Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls must dive below.
-John Dryden

Truth comes out of error more readily than out of confusion.
- Francis Bacon

It is one Thing, to show a Man that he is in an Error, and another, to put him in possession of Truth.
- John Locke

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.
- Albert Einstein

*****
The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding.
- Francis Bacon

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.
- Albert Einstein

Education is what you have left when you have forgotten everything you learned in school.
- Albert Einstein, 1936

It is as fatal as it is cowardly to blink facts because they are not to our taste.
- Tyndall

Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things.
- Spinoza

When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.
- Mark Twain

I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong.
- Richard Feynman

Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.
- Albert Einstein

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best--and therefore never scrutinize or question.
-Stephen Jay Gould

There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That's perfectly all right; they're the aperture to finding out what's right.
- Carl Sagan

An easily understood, workable falsehood is more useful than a complex incomprehensible truth.
- Thumb's Postulates

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
-Einstein

Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things.
- Spinoza

_________________


Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

*****
It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.
-Moliere, actor and playwright (1622-1673)

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.
-Charles W. Eliot, educator (1834-1926)

A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.
-Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter,
painter,educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)

“Moral indignation is a technique used to endow the idiot with dignity.”
-Marshal McLuhan

A penny will hide the biggest star in the universe if you hold it close enough to your eye. -Samuel Grafton

All sunshine makes a desert.
-Arabic proverb

We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction.
-General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)

A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do you know that his future will not be equal to our present?
-Confucius, philosopher and teacher (551-497 BC)

D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.
-W. Somerset Maugham, novelist, dramatist, short-story writer (1874-1965) [Of Human Bondage]

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.
-Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

*****
What is to give light must endure burning.
-Viktor Frankl, author,neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)

Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults.
-Antisthenes

*****
"We don't see things as they are - we see things as we are."
- Anias Nin

I wish I were either rich enough or poor enough to do a lot of things that are impossible in my present comfortable circumstances.
-Don Herold

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
-Anne Bradstreet

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
-Rene Descartes

"He who asks is a fool for 5 minutes, but he who does not ask is a fool forever..."
- Old Chinese saying


No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
-Harry Emerson Fosdick


"Innocence and Beauty have but one enemy - Time"
- W.B. Yeats

Men seek out retreats for themselves in the country, by the seaside, on the moutains... But all this is unphilosophical to the last degree... when thou canst at a moment's notice retire into thyself.
-Marcus Aelius Aurelius

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.
-Jesse Louis Jackson

*****
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
-Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first is unpleasant and ill-paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.
-Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, and author (1872-1970)

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is.
-Chuck Reid

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. -Socrates

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
-Cicero

We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.
-Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) [Pensees]

Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.
-Mark Helprin

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't.
-Anatole France

Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thine superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company is the way to grow worse; the best means to grow better is to be the worst there. -Francis Quarles (1592-1644)

Children aren't happy without something to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.
-Ogden Nash (1902-1971)

Be aware that a halo has to fall only a few inches to be a noose. -Dan McKinnon

As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.
-Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)


*****
The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
-John Milton (1608-1674) [Paradise Lost]

Just as a cautious businessman avoids tying up all his capital in one concern, so, perhaps, worldly wisdom will advise us not to look for the whole of our satisfaction from a single aspiration.
-Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.
-La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)

Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase.
-John Balguy

If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
-Socrates (469?-399 B.C.)

Kindness is loving people more than they deserve.
-Joseph Joubert, French moralist and essayist (1754-1824)

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed be doing at that moment.
-Robert Benchley

A woman's head is always influenced by heart; but a man's heart by his head.
-Lady Marguerite Blessington (1789-1849)

Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.
-Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)

If I can stop one Heart from breaking / I shall not live in vain / If I can ease one Life the Aching / Or cool one Pain / Or help one fainting Robin /Unto his Nest again / I shall not live in Vain.
-Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Man is harder than iron, stronger than stone and more fragile than a rose.
-Turkish proverb

Memory moderates prosperity, decreases adversity, controls youth and delights old age.
-Lactantius Firmianus


Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
-T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)


If you want something really important to be done you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also.
-Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

*****
Strange that creatures without backbones have the hardest shells.
-Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) [Sand and Foam]

It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise.
-Henry David Thoreau [Walden]

*****
Nothing produces such odd results as trying to get even.
-Franklin P. Jones

The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist."
-Maria Montessori, Italian educator (1870-1952)

Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
-Oscar Wilde

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
-Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young,compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
-George Washington Carver (1864?-1943)

He who does not attempt to make peace / When small discords arise, / Is like the bee's hive which leaks drops of honey / Soon, the whole hive collapses.
-Nagarjuna (c. 100-200 A.D.)

He who asks of life nothing but the improvement of his own nature...is less liable than anyone else to miss and waste life.
-Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881)

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.
-Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Was there ever any domination that did not appear natural to those who possessed it?
-John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.
-Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

To teach is to learn twice.
-Joseph Joubert (1754-1824)

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question
mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
-Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)


I shut my eyes in order to see.
-Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)


A book must be an axe for the frozen sea inside of us.
-Franz Kafka, Austrian Writer (1883-1924)


When you want to test the depths of a stream, don't use both feet.
-Chinese Proverb

Nothing in the 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 will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
-Calvin Coolidge

Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you.
-William Arthur Ward, American newspaper editor, writer

A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
-Albert Schweitzer [The Philosophy of Civilization]

*****
Contentment consisteth not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire.
-Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)

All humanity is divided into three classes: those who are immovable, those who are movable, and those who move!
-Benjamin Franklin

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.
-J. Russell Lynes (1910-1991)


I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
-Blaise Pascal (1623-1962)

One's reach must exceed their grasp, or what's a heaven for?
-Robert
Browning


Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
-Sydney J. Harris

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.
-Robert Maynard Hutchins

Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work,pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle.
-Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn will not practice elementary compassion towards our fellow creatures.
-Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.
-Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

I will love the light for it shows me the way, Yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.
-Og Mandino

Success is not measured by the position one has reached in life, rather by the obstacles overcome while trying to succeed.
-Booker T. Washington

Old books that have ceased to be of service should no more be abandoned than should old friends who have ceased to give pleasure.
-Peregrine Worsthorne

Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.
-George Santayana

Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add 'We must be realistic,’they mean they are going to make money out of it.
-Brigid Brophy

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
-Aristotle

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson