To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. – Mary Oliver
Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. – Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ, c.1420
Good for the body is the work of the body, and good for the soul is the work of the soul, and good for either is the work of the other. – Henry David Thoreau
Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all life really means. – Robert Louis Stevenson
In what you say of another, apply the test of kindness, necessity and truth, and let nothing pass your lips without a 2/3 majority. – Liz Armbruster, on rbrault.blogspot.com
See everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little. – Pope John XXIII
Give thanks for what you are now, and keep fighting for what you want to be tomorrow. – Fernanda Miramontes-Landeros
Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Do not confuse your vested interests with ethics. Do not identify the enemies of your privilege with the enemies of humanity. – Max Lerner, Actions and Passions, 1949
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. – Victor Hugo
We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood. – William James
You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him. – Leo Aikman
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. – Frank Herbert (1920–1986), Dune Chronicles
The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile. – Plato
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. – Jonathan Kozel
I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum. – Frances Willard
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. – W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up, 1938
The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself. – Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Last Tournament,” Idylls of the King
I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes. – Sara Teasdale, “The Philosopher”
