Light

"No one lights a lamp in order to hide it behind the door:  the purpose of light is to create more light,
to open people's eyes, to reveal the marvels around." —Paulo Coelho

Reflection

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

Insanity

Insanity in individuals is something rare -- but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule. -Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

Compliments

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Words

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. -Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and novelist (1811-1896)

Ideas

An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. -Don Marquis, humorist and poet (1878-1937)

on Defending

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

Ambition

It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't lost the things that money can't buy. -George H. Lorimer, editor (1868-1937)

Cleverness

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. -Naguib Mahfouz, writer, Nobel laureate (1911-2006)

Words

Our expression and our words never coincide, which is why the animals don't understand us. -Malcolm De Chazal, writer and painter (1902-1981)

Happiness

Happiness is not something ready made.  It comes from your own actions. ~ Dalai Lama

Trouble

If you are always dwelling in trouble, change your address. ~ American proverb

Ambition

There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher. -Henry van Dyke, poet (1852-1933)

Faith

Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue. -Robert King Merton, sociologist (1910-2003)

Fear

We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstractions police and threaten us. -Robert Hayden, poet and educator (1913-1980)

Life & understanding

As I grow to understand life less and less, I learn to live it more and more. -Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)

Thoughts

The fingers of your thoughts are molding your face ceaselessly. -Charles Reznikoff, poet (1894-1976)

Virtue & Wisdom

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it. ~David Star Jordan

Accomplishment

I am only one, but I am one.  I cannot do everything, but I can do something.  And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.  ~Edward Everett Hale

Language

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper patterns at the right moment. -Hart Crane, poet (1899-1932)

Perceptions

Don't judge men's wealth or godliness by their Sunday appearance. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

Patriot

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind. -Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

Rest

How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward. -Spanish proverb

Thoughts

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)