What an odd, ruminating, noisy, self-interrupting conversation we conduct with ourselves from birth to death. – Diane Ackerman, An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain

The only man we have any respect for is the man who uses all the endowment he has, and uses it until he bleeds. – Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962) [Preceding Fischerisms entry — Karl Lu

I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in the darkness, the astonishing light of your own being. – Hāfez

Reputation is in itself only a farthing candle, of a wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit. – James Russell Lowell