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Inspirational Quotations #772

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I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.
—Douglas MacArthur (American Military Leader)

It is necessary to try to pass one’s self always; this occupation ought to last as long as life.
—Christina, Queen of Sweden (Swedish Monarch)

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.
—Indira Gandhi (Indian Head of State)

Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower, and draws all good things toward you. Allow your love to nourish yourself as well as others. Do not strain after the needs of life. It is sufficient to be quietly alert and aware of them. In this way life proceeds more naturally and effortlessly. Life is here to Enjoy!
—Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Indian Hindu Religious Leader)

When lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday, cash me out.
—Frank Sinatra (American Singer)

Man, a dunce uncouth, errs in age and youth: babies know the truth.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne (English Poet)

Hatred comes from the heart; contempt from the head; and neither feeling is quite within our control.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

It’s not within anyone’s power to save the world, but it is within your power to add whatever you can with a loving and caring and peaceful heart.
—Jack Kornfield (American Buddhist Teacher, Author)

The best thing that can happen to a human being is to find a problem, to fall in love with that problem, and to live trying to solve that problem, unless another problem even more lovable appears.
—Karl Popper (Austrian-born British Philosopher)

The secret of all effective originality in advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships.
—Leo Burnett (American Journalist)

In order to build anything great, you have to be an optimist, because by definition you are trying to do something that most would consider impossible. Optimists most certainly do not listen to leading indicators of bad news.
—Andrew Grove (Hungarian-born American Businessperson)

Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence.
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

Beauty is the first present nature gives to women and the first it takes away.
—George Brossin Mere (French Intellectual, Author)

Adversity not only draws people together, but brings forth that beautiful inward friendship.
—Soren Kierkegaard (Danish Philosopher, Theologian)

The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Inspirational Quotations #761

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We Japanese enjoy the small pleasures, not extravagance. I believe a man should have a simple lifestyle—even if he can afford more.
—Masaru Ibuka (Japanese Entrepreneur, Engineer)

Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness: those in love understand one another best when silent, while the most heated and impassioned speech at a graveside touches only outsiders, but seems cold and inconsequential to the widow and children of the deceased.
—Anton Chekhov (Russian Short Story Writer)

A lie told often enough becomes truth.
—Vladimir Lenin (Russian Revolutionary Leader)

To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be or you don’t be.
—Golda Meir (Israeli Head of State)

The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.
—Tony Blair (British Statesman)

I know no better augury of a young man’s future than true filial devotion. Very rarely does one go morally wrong, whose passionate love to his mother is a ruling force in his life, and whose continual desire is to gladden her heart. Next to the love of God, this is the noblest emotion. I do not remember a single instance of a young fellow going to the bad who was tenderly devoted to his parents.
—John Thain Davidson (British Presbyterian Preacher)

Look for the woman in the dress. If there is no woman, there is no dress.
—Coco Chanel (French Fashion Designer)

The opposite of good is not evil, it is indifference.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (American Jewish Rabbi)

Maybe it was because like not only finds like; it can’t even escape from being found by its like. Even when it’s just like in one thing, because even them two with the same like was different.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

From the Hindu perspective, each soul is divine. All religions are branches of one big tree. It doesn’t matter what you call Him just as long as you call. Just as cinematic images appear to be real but are only combinations of light and shade, so is the universal variety a delusion. The planetary spheres, with their countless forms of life, are naught but figures in a cosmic motion picture. One’s values are profoundly changed when he is finally convinced that creation is only a vast motion picture and that not in, but beyond, lays his own ultimate reality.
—George Harrison (English Singer)

There are two kinds of people who lose money: those who know nothing and those who know everything.
—Henry Kaufman (American Economic, Financial Consultant)

Hatred ever kills, love never dies; such is the vast difference between the two. What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Rhythm is the basis of life, not steady forward progress. The forces of creation, destruction, and preservation have a whirling, dynamic interaction.
—Kabbalah Teaching (Jewish Mystical, Theosophical Tradition)

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

Why I’m Frugal

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Frugality Over the Ages: Frugality as a Virtue

Frugality Over the Ages

From Socrates to Thoreau, from Franklin to Gandhi, philosophers, moralists, and spiritual leaders have identified frugality as a virtue and associated simple living with wisdom, integrity, and happiness. The Cynics were the first to reject wealth, power, sex, fame, and other desires in favor of a simple life free of all possessions. Diogenes the Cynic (portrayed in image) famously lived in a wine barrel and had no worldly goods.

For the Puritans, the love of material consumption was an evil; their spiritual doctrine stressed, in the words of the American historian Edmund Morgan,

A man was but the steward of the possessions he accumulated. If he indulged himself in luxurious living, he would have that much less with which to support church and society. If he needlessly consumed his substance, either from carelessness or from sensuality, he failed to honor the God who furnished him with it.

Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, a doyen of the self-improvement movement, listed frugality as one of the 13 virtues he followed as a young man. Between 1732 and 1757, Franklin published such famous aphorisms in his Poor Richard’s Almanack as “be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich,” “beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship,” and “he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.”

For the American philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, frugality or “transcendental simplicity” was a means to a higher end. In Man the Reformer (1841,) Emerson wrote, “Economy is a high, humane office, a sacrament, when its aim is grand; when it is the prudence of simple tastes, when it is practiced for freedom, or love, or devotion.” For Thoreau, “high thinking was preferable to high living;” he wrote in Walden (1854,) “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meager life than the poor”.

Thoreau inspired the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. After suffering a mental breakdown in the late 1870s, Tolstoy, who was born into Russian nobility, rejected his family’s estate and serfdom. He renounced his decadent, racy lifestyle and engaged in a revolutionary brand of Christianity based on spiritual and material austerity.

Tolstoy’s philosophy showed the way for the creation of utopian communities of simple, self-sufficient living—the most famous example being the “Tolstoy Farm” ashram that Mahatma Gandhi established in South Africa. Gandhi was the quintessence of simplicity and sported austere homespun clothing. He famously said, “you may have occasion to possess or use material things, but the secret of life lies in never missing them,” and “our civilization, our culture, our [nation] depend not upon multiplying our wants—self-indulgence, but upon restricting our wants—self-denial.”

Frugality is a Moral Virtue

The distinguished career coach Marty Nemko once wrote, “I even take care to tear-off single sheets of toilet paper. Because I’m cheap? No. Because it’ll help the environment? No. I just think wasting is wrong.” That, in a nutshell, is why I’m frugal.

For me, frugality suggests an appropriate limit on individual and collective desires; it denies the materialistic expectations that the modern society imposes upon us.

Frugality is not some form of world-denying asceticism or austerity. It is a part of principled stewardship of not only the resources I’ve been blessed with but also of myself.

Frugality is about forgoing a subset of desires—as part of a quest for an abundant life. In other words, frugality restricts my indulgence of materialistic appetite, with the intention that I leave space for the cultivation of diverse forms of pleasure.

When I started to work while still in college, frugality was an element of my quest for financial independence. It became the lynchpin of a deliberate set of lifestyle choices and values. But my focus on achieving financial freedom never let me pining for the pleasures I might have had.

Six years ago, I gave up a corporate job and significant earnings in favor of a simpler life with plenty of discretionary time and money for world travel, leisure, learning, culture, and meaning.

Idea for Impact: Enjoying a rich life is more important than zealously stewarding one’s savings and investments.

Living frugally, with the particular intention of achieving financial freedom, requires a good measure of renunciation. This renunciation is easiest when one regards it not as deprivation, but as a deliberate choice in a trade-off for an enriched life.

Inspirational Quotations #755

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A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how”.
—Viktor Frankl (Austrian Physician)

Right now a moment is fleeting by! Capture its reality in paint! To do that we must put all else out of our minds. We must become that moment, make ourselves a sensitive recording plate. Give the image of what we actually see, forgetting everything that has been seen before our time.
—Paul Cezanne (French Painter)

All men are sculptors, constantly chipping away the unwanted parts of their lives, trying to create their idea of a masterpiece.
—Eddie Murphy (American Actor)

Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (English Novelist)

To be liberated, woman must feel free to be herself, not in rivalry to man but in the context of her own capacity and her personality.
—Indira Gandhi (Indian Head of State)

You are a fool if you do just as I say. You are a greater fool if you don’t do as I say. You should think for yourself and come up with better ideas than mine.
—Taiichi Ohno (Japanese Manufacturing Engineer)

People who have become so precious that they go out of their way to try and be sensitive in the most unpromising situations, trying to capture every moment of interest, are bound to look ridiculous and superficial.
—Murasaki Shikibu (Japanese Diarist, Novelist)

Fortune is a prize to be won. Adventure is the road to it. Chance is what may lurk in the shadows at the roadside.
—O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) (American Writer of Short Stories)

Tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the better.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)

The Historian’s Fallacy: People of the Past Had No Knowledge of the Future

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The practice of picking a thesis and then setting out to establish it is a widespread intellectual pursuit. But biographers and historians sometimes portray their subjects as if the historical participants could recognize what lay ahead of them.

Assuming that people of the past pondered over the events of their day from the same perspective as we do in the present is committing The Historian’s Fallacy.

The notion of the historian’s fallacy was first presented by the British literary critic Matthew Arnold (1822–88) in The Study of Poetry (1880.) In questioning how historical backgrounds were portrayed in the development of literary styles, Arnold called attention to the frequent logical error of using hindsight to assign a sense of causality and foresight of significant historical events to the people who lived through them. In reality, those historical participants may not have had wide-ranging perspective that we assume in interpreting the context, conventions and limitations of their time. Arnold wrote,

The course of development of a nation’s language, thought, and poetry, is profoundly interesting; and by regarding a poet’s work as a stage in this course of development we may easily bring ourselves to make it of more importance as poetry than in itself it really is, we may come to use a language of quite exaggerated praise in criticising it; in short, to overrate it. So arises in our poetic judgments the fallacy caused by the estimate which we may call historic. … Our personal affinities, likings and circumstances, have great power to sway our estimate of this or that poet’s work, and to make us attach more importance to it as poetry than in itself it really possesses, because to us it is, or has been, of high importance.

The American historian David Hackett Fischer, who coined the phrase “historian’s fallacy,” cited the claim that the United States should have anticipated Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor because of the many warning signs that an attack was in the cards. Fischer argues those signs seem obvious only in hindsight—to the World War II military leaders, many of those signs suggested possible attacks on many positions other than Pearl Harbor.

A good historian strives for objectivity by ignoring his own knowledge of consequent events and employing only what the historic individuals would have known in the context of their own time.

A related fallacy is Presentism—a manner of historical analysis wherein the past is interpreted by means of present-day attitudes. Presentism often fosters moral self-righteousness. Employing present-day moral standards to reflect on the Founding Fathers’ ownership of slaves, David Hume’s racism, or Gandhi’s opposition to modernity and technology should not be tainted by our stance of temporal condescension.

Inspirational Quotations #729

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Every job looks easy when you’re not the one doing it.
—Jeffrey Immelt (American Businessperson)

Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us does render some service or other. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger, and will make not only for our own happiness but that of the world at large.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Those who are brutally honest are seldom so with themselves.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

Expecting something for nothing is the most popular form of hope.
—Arnold Glasow (American Businessman)

Unless each day can be looked back upon by an individual as one in which he has had some fun, some joy, some real satisfaction, that day is a loss.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (American Head of State)

Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Swiss Philosopher)

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

It’s true that charisma can make a person stand out for a moment, but character sets a person apart for a lifetime.
—John C. Maxwell (American Christian Professional Speaker)

There is something good in all seeming failures. You are not to see that now. Time will reveal it. Be patient.
—Sivananda Saraswati

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
—W. Somerset Maugham (French Playwright)

The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

Everyone can recognize history when it happens. Everyone can recognize history after is has happened; but only the wise man knows at the moment what is vital and permanent, what is lasting and memorable.
—Winston Churchill (British Head of State)

There is often more spiritual force in a proverb than in whole philosophical systems.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

The person who offends writes as if it was written on sand, and the person who is offended reads it as if it were written on marble.
—Italian Proverb

The main thing about being a hero is to know when to die.
—Will Rogers (American Actor)

The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Kind words are a creative force, a power that concurs in the building up of all that is good, and energy that showers blessings upon the world.
—Lawrence G. Lovasik

The child is not to be educated for the present, but for the remote future, and often is opposition to the immediate future.
—Jean Paul (German Novelist)

Inspirational Quotations #727

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Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed!
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Don’t abuse your friends and expect them to consider it criticism.
—E. W. Howe (American Novelist)

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

There is nothing of which every man is so afraid, as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.
—Soren Kierkegaard (Danish Philosopher, Theologian)

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
—Winston Churchill (British Head of State)

A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.
—Erica Jong (American Novelist)

Circumstances are the rulers of the weak; they are but the instruments of the wise.
—Samuel Lover (Irish Songwriter)

Trust not him that hath once broken faith; he who betrayed thee once, will betray thee again.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

The ability to recognize that the winds have shifted and to take appropriate action before you wreck your boat is crucial to the future of an enterprise.
—Andrew Grove (Hungarian-born American Businessperson)

It is not the amount of trade that makes the man poor or rich, but honest working and dealing.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

Society is no comfort to one not sociable.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. A goal is what specifically you intend to make happen. Dreams and goals should be just out of your present reach but not out of sight. Dreams and goals are coming attractions in your life.
—Joseph Campbell

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Human nature is so constituted that is we take absolutely no notice of anger or abuse, the person indulging in it will soon weary of it and stop.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.
—Thomas Aquinas (Italian Catholic Priest)

Reflect upon the defects of your character: thoroughly realize their evils and the transient pleasures they give you, and firmly will that you shall try your best not to yield to them the next time.
—Helena Blavatsky (Ukrainian-born American Theosophist)

He who goes no further than bare justice, stops at the beginning of virtue.
—Hugh Blair (Scottish Clergyman)

Inspirational Quotations #726

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In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves … self-discipline with all of them came first.
—Harry S. Truman (American Head of State)

When you rise in the morning, form a resolution to make the day a happy one for a fellow creature.
—Sydney Smith (English Anglican Writer)

Solitude has a healing consoler, friend, companion: it is work.
—Berthold Auerbach (German Jewish Poet)

What men call knowledge, is the reasoned acceptance of false appearances. Wisdom looks behind the veil and sees.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Yogi, Nationalist)

Character is the result of hundreds and hundreds of choices you make that gradually turn who you are, at any given moment, into who you want to be.
—Jim Rohn (American Entrepreneur)

When life takes the wind out of your sails, it is to test you at the oars.
—Robert Brault

Show me a completely contented person and I’ll show you a failure.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.
—Denis Waitley (American Motivational Speaker)

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble.
—Charles Spurgeon (British Baptist Preacher)

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.
—C. S. Lewis (Irish-born British Children’s Books Writer)

Whatever bad awaits, don’t let it spoil the present moment.
—Marty Nemko (American Career Coach, Author)

If your heart acquires strength, you will be able to remove blemishes from others without thinking evil of them.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Education is the progressive realization of our ignorance.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

Money is always on its way somewhere. What you do with it while it is in your keeping and the direction you send it in say much about you. Your treatment of and respect for money, how you make it, and how you spend it, reflect your character.
—Gary Ryan Blair

Man’s mind stretched by a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)

Character is much easier kept than recovered.
—Thomas Paine (American Nationalist)

Inspirational Quotations #725

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A person well satisfied with themselves is seldom satisfied with others, and others, rarely are with them.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Sorrow is mere rust of the soul; activity will cleanse and brighten it.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery; it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of. Happy were we all born philosophers; all born with a talent of thus dissipating our own cares by spreading them upon all mankind.
—Oliver Goldsmith (Irish Author)

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world—that is the myth of the atomic age—as in being able to remake ourselves.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Wise to resolve, patient to perform.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

Miracles seldom occur in the lives of those who do not consider them possible.
—Neale Donald Walsch (American Spiritual Writer)

Leadership is not magnetic personality–that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not making friends and influencing people—that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.
—Peter Drucker (Austrian-born Management Consultant)

No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.
—Henry Miller (American Novelist)

There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.
—The Dhammapada (Buddhist Anthology of Verses)

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

The result of the educative process is capacity for further education.
—John Dewey (American Philosopher)

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.
—Jacques Barzun (French-born American Historian)

Tough times never last, but tough people do.
—Robert H. Schuller

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
—Ambrose Bierce (American Editor)

Actions speak louder than words.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.
—Anthony Trollope (English Novelist)

Inspirational Quotations #721

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One of the commonest mistakes and one of the costliest is thinking that success is due to some genius, some magic—something or other which we do not possess. Success is generally due to holding on, and failure to letting go. You decide to learn a language, study music, take a course of reading, train yourself physically. Will it be success or failure? It depends upon how much pluck and perseverance that word “decide” contains. The decision that nothing can overrule, the grip that nothing can detach will bring success. Remember the Chinese proverb, “With time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes satin.”
—Maltbie Davenport Babcock (American Presbyterian Clergyman)

A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.
—Desiderius Erasmus (Dutch Catholic Humanist)

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (Florentine Political Philosopher)

The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.
—George Santayana (Spanish Philosopher)

Mental violence has no potency and injures only the person whose thoughts are violent. It is otherwise with mental non-violence. It has potency which the world does not yet know.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

The reason that adulation is not displeasing is that, though untrue, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce people to lie.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)

An eager pursuit of fortune is inconsistent with a severe devotion to truth. The heart must grow tranquil before the thought can become searching.
—Christian Nestell Bovee

Familiarity breeds contempt.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

Put your heart, mind, intellect, and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.
—Sivananda Saraswati

The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.
—John Stuart Mill (English Philosopher, Economist)

The golden rule is of no use whatsoever unless you realize that it is your move.
—Frank Hall Crane