The arts and sciences, in general, during the three or four last centuries, have had a regular course of progressive improvement. The inventions in mechanic arts, the discoveries in natural philosophy, navigation and commerce, and the advancement of civilization and humanity, have occasioned changes in the condition of the world and the human character which would have astonished the most refined nations of antiquity. A continuation of similar exertions is everyday rendering Europe more and more like one community, or single family.

Life is a great bundle of little things

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.

C.S. Lewis

A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

Anon.

Look, I hate to sound like Pollyanna, but I literally can't wait to get to work in the morning. I've got steady jobs, I've got my health, and I'm here in the greatest city in the world. I'd be a pig not to be grateful.

Christopher Meloni

Another cause of your sickness, and the most important: you have forgotten what you are.

Boethius (Anicius Manlius Severi

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, and that craves wary walking.

William Shakespeare

There are more men ennobled by study than by nature.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Honesty is the most single most important factor having a direct bearing on the final success of an individual, corporation, or product.

Ed McMahon

We are all born with a unique genetic blueprint, which lays out the basic characteristics of our personality as well as our physical health and appearance... And yet, we all know that life experiences do change us.

Joan D. Vinge

Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

Oscar Wilde

I think everybody faces challenges in their lives. I've definitely been through it - not to the extreme that Astrid did. I try to keep some kind of identity and strength.

Alison Lohman