What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)
Of all the evils that infest a state, a tyrant is the greatest; his sole will commands the laws, and lords it over them.
—Euripides (Ancient Greek Dramatist)
Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love.
—Saul Bellow (Canadian-born American Novelist)
Do not keep the alabaster box of your friendship sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier. The kind of things you mean to say when they are gone, say before they go.
—George William Childs (American Publisher)
Fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step.
—Haruki Murakami (Japanese Novelist)
Every human being has something, a spiritual element, that makes them want to do better, to reach higher.
—Ela Bhatt (Indian Labor Activist)
Action is but coarsened thought; thought become concrete, obscure, and unconscious.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher, Writer)
Somewhere along the line of development we discover what we really are and then we make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else’s lie, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life and what you become yourself.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American Humanitarian)
Talk as much philosophy as you like, worship as many gods as you please, observe ceremonies and sing devotional hymns, but liberation will never come, even after a hundred aeons, without realizing the Oneness.
—Adi Shankaracharya (Indian Hindu Philosopher)
What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.
—Sappho (Greek Poet)