The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)
Men must be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown propos’d as things forgot.
—Alexander Pope (English Poet)
Meditation consists in conducting consciousness beyond the point where it is the consciousness of a finite body or a finite mind, transferring the focus from level to level without losing its continuity or form.
—Vilayat Inayat Khan (British Sufi Mystic)
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
—William Ellery Channing
It was much later that I realized Dad’s secret. He gained respect by giving it. He talked and listened to the fourth-grade kids in Spring Valley who shined shoes the same way he talked and listened to a bishop or a college president. He was seriously interested in who you were and what you had to say.
—Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot (American Sociologist)
To be yourself is an achievement in itself.
—Anonymous
Concern over criticism clogs creativity.
—Duane Alan Hahn
The tragedy of life is not that man loses,
but that he almost wins.
—Heywood Hale Broun (American Journalist)
Leaders establish the vision for the future and set the strategy for getting there; they cause change. They motivate and inspire others to go in the right direction and they, along with everyone else, sacrifice to get there.
—John Kotter (American Academic)
Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe.
—Winston Churchill (British Head of State)