Beecher: "Greatness lies not in..."

"Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right using of strength... he is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts."

- Henry Ward Beecher

Ray Bradbury: "There was a silly damn bird..."

"There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man."

- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury: "That's the wonderful thing about man..."

"That's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing."

- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury: 3 Necessities

"Where do we go from here? Would books help us?"

"Only if the third necessary thing could be given us. Number one, as I said: quality of information. Number two: leisure to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two."

- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury: "We are living..."

"We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam."

- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Wes Moore: "None of us..."

"None of us are ever promised anything. Make sure it matters that you are here."

-Wes Moore, author of The Other Wes Moore

Wes Moore: "The world is..."

"The world is much bigger than what is right in front of you."

-Wes Moore, author of The Other Wes Moore

John Adams: "I must study..."

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music..."

Kurt Vonnegut: "Go into the arts..."

"Go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something."

–Kurt Vonnegut, novelist/essayist/artist

Gillian Flynn: "People want to believe..."

"People want to believe they know other people. Parents want to believe they know their kids. Wives want to believe they know their husbands."

–Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

Gillian Flynn: "It's a very difficult era..."

"It's a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless automat of characters."

–Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

Daniel Quinn: "It isn't the tale..."

"It isn’t the tale you tell that counts, it’s the way you actually live."

–Daniel Quinn, Ishmael

Dave Eggers: "Your job is to..."

"Your job is to be human. First, be human."

–Dave Eggers, You Shall Know Our Velocity

Salman Rushdie: "Human beings understand..."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: "We must rapidly begin..."

"We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., American clergyman & prominent activist in the civil rights movement

Deborah Reed: "People don't always have..."

"People don't always have good sense."

—Deborah Reed, Carry Yourself Back to Me (p208)

Dalai Lama: "Today, as we mark..."

"Today, as we mark the tenth anniversary of the September 11th 2001 attacks on New York and Washington DC, let us remember all the innocent lives lost and ponder the continuing impact of that tragic day. September 11th reminds us of the horror we human beings can unleash on ourselves when we allow our human intelligence and powerful technology to be overtaken by hatred.

"We need to learn from our painful memories of September 11th and become more aware of the destructive consequences that arise when we give in to feelings of hatred. This tragedy in particular has reinforced my belief that fostering a spirit of peaceful co-existence and mutual understanding among the world’s peoples and faith traditions is an urgent matter of importance to us all. We must therefore make every effort to ensure that our various faith traditions contribute to build a more caring, peaceful world."

—The Dalai Lama, September 9, 2011
Originally published in the Washington Post on September 10, 2011

Matthew Cody: "We are such a..."

"We are such a funny race, humans. Compelled to scratch our lives out in ink, on paper or rock. Whether it's a limestone wall or the pulp pages of a comic book, I suspect it's hard-wired in our DNA — the urge to record our lives."

—Matthew Cody, Powerless (p235)

Herman Hesse: "The world is perfect..."

"The world is perfect at every moment.  Every sin already contains grace within it, all little children already have an old person in them, every infant has death within it, and all dying people have within them eternal life. It is not possible to see in another person how far along the way he is. In the bandit & dice player, a Buddha is waiting; in the Brahmin, a bandit. In the depths of meditation lies the possibility of cutting though time, of seeing the simultaneity of all past, present, future life; and within that, everything is good, all is perfect, all is Brahman. Thus I see whatever is as good. I see that life & death, sin & holiness, intelligence & foolishness, must be as they are. It only requires my consent, my willingness, my loving acceptance & it will be good for me, can never harm me. Let it be. Love it. Be glad to be a part."


—Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

Alan W. Watts: "When there is no..."

"When there is no vision, the people shall perish."

—Alan W. Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity