Inspirational

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." — Martin Luther King Jr.

"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

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." — Oscar Wilde (Lady Windermere's Fan)

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." — Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles)

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song." — Maya Angelou

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse." — Thomas Stephen Szasz

"Peace begins with a smile.." — Mother Teresa

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares." — Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey)

"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions."
— Dalai Lam"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death."
— Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)

"There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.....the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope." — Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see." — Arthur Schopenhauer

"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly." — Siddhartha Gautama

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." — Theodore Roosevelt

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant." — Robert Louis Stevenson

"A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light." — Leonardo da Vinci

"When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters. One represents danger, the other opportunity." — John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it...always." — Mahatma Gandhi

"However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?" — Siddhartha Gautama

"Sometimes our flame goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being." — Albert Schweitzer

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!" — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people." — John Henry Newman

"Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not. " — Pablo Picasso (Pablo Picasso: Metamorphoses of the Human Form : Graphic Works, 1895-1972)

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him." — Siddhartha Gautama

"A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for." — William G. Shedd

"There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills." — Siddhartha Gautama

"He that can have patience can have what he will." — Benjamin Franklin

"But life is a battle: may we all be enabled to fight it well!" — Charlotte Bronta« (The Letters of Charlotte Bronte)

"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful." — Siddhartha Gautama

"My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see." — Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim)

"You need to find a way to live your life, that it doesn't make a mockery of your values." — Bill Ayers

"The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there." — Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values)

"Rise to the occassion which is life!" — Virginia Euwer Wolff

"The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time." — George Bernard Shaw

"... when you're cool for twenty,
you get paid for twenty-one." — Miguel Pinero