Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.

If you would have a boy to despise his mother, let her keep him at home, and spend her life in petting him up, and slaving to indulge his follies and caprices.

Anne Bronte

I believe it is in my nature to dance by virtue of the beat of my heart, the pulse of my blood and the music in my mind.

Robert Fulghum

Much of today's public anxiety about science is the apprehension that we may forever be overlooking the whole by an endless, obsessive preoccupation with the parts.

Lewis Thomas

Home is where one starts from.

T. S. Eliot

One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely.

Henry David Thoreau

Men who for truth and honor's sake Stand fast and suffer long.Brave men who work while others sleep,Who dare while others fly...They build a nation's pillars deepAnd lift them to the sky.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, from A Nati

Propaganda is that branch of the art of lying which consists in nearly deceiving your friends without quite deceiving your enemies.

Francis Macdonald Cornford

The way to be with God in every season is to strive to be near Him every week and each day.

Thomas S. Monson

One of the rewards of success is freedom, the ability to do whatever you like.

Sting

In our extreme youth, in our most humiliating sorrow, we think we are alone. When we are older we find that others have suffered too.

Suzanne Moarny

The sincere friends of this world are as ship lights in the stormiest of nights.

Giotto di Bondone

When by the Ruins oft I past My sorrowing eyes aside did castAnd here and there the places spyWhere oft I sate and long did lie.Here stood that Trunk, and there that chest,There lay that store I counted best,My pleasant things in ashes lieAnd them behold no more shall I.Under the roof no guest shall sit,Nor at thy Table eat a bit.No pleasant talk shall 'ere be toldNor things recounted done of old.No Candle 'ere shall shine in Thee,Nor bridegroom's voice ere heard shall bee.In silence ever shalt thou lie.

Anne Dudley Bradstreet, Verses u