WORDS OF WISDOM

Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first. When you learn to live for others, they will live for you. - Paramahansa Yogananda

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness. - George Orwell

Fear not for the future; weep not for the past. - Percey Byshe Shelley

To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough. - Albert Einstein

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. - Voltaire

Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present. - Albert Camus

The unexamined life is not worth living. - Socrates

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. - Horace Mann

Time and memory are true artists; they remould reality nearer to the heart's desire. - John Dewey

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose. - Lyndon B. Johnson

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. - Albert Einstein

In the small circle of pain within the skull
You still shall tramp and tread one endless round
Of thought, to justify your action to yourselves,
Weaving a fiction which unravels as you weave,
Pacing forever in the hell of make-believe
Which never is belief: this is your fate on earth
And we must think no further of you.
- T. S. Eliot

I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. - Thomas Edison

Dare to be naive. - R. Buckminster Fuller

A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe'; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compasion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security. - Albert Einstein

One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything's fine today, that is our illusion. - Voltaire

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know. - Mark Twain

Knowledge is power. - Francis Bacon

A man is accepted into church for what he believes--and turned out for what he knows. - Mark Twain

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb  meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent plant. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste may days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time. - Jack London

If death is the end of everything, then living is everything. - Robert D. Richardson

If thou must love me, let it be for naught except for love's sake only. - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. - Horace Walpole

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. - Bertrand Russell

Avarice, envy, pride,
Three fatal sparks, have set the hearts of all
On Fire.
- Dante Alighieri

The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved. - Victor Hugo

Put away the book, the description, the tradition, the authority, and take the journey of self-discovery. Love, and don't be caught in opinions and ideas about what love is or should be. When you love, everything will come right. Love has its own action. Love, and you will know the blessings of it. Keep away from the authority who tells you what love and what it is not. No authority knows and he who knows cannot tell. Love, and there is understanding. - Krishnamurti

Because I could not stop for Death --
He kindly stopped for me --
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality.
- Emily Dickinson

It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.  - Agatha Christie

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.
- Robert Frost

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow; don't walk behind me, I may not lead; walk beside me, and just be my friend. - Albert Camus

The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever galling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. - John Muir

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. - Umberto Eco

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
- William Blake

I am ready to meet my maker, but whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. - Winston Churchill

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

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars. - Charles Darwin

Every now and again take a good look at something not made with hands —a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream. There will come to you wisdom and patience and solace and, above all, the assurance that you are not alone in the world. - Sidney Lovett

For the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still. - Albert Camus

Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I expect to pass through this life but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. - William Penn

It is not rebellion itself which is noble but the demands it makes upon us. - Albert Camus

There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees. - Victor Hugo

Is not this the true romantic feeling - not to desire to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping you? - Thomas Wolfe

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

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

My mother said to me, "If you become a soldier, you'll be a general; if you become a monk, you'll end up as the pope." Instead, I became a painter, and wound up Picasso. - Pablo Picasso

I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will. - Antonio Gramsci

There was no "before" the beginning of our universe, because once upon a time there was no time. - John D. Barrow