The seasons are shifting, The winter shades lifting,The springtime is fillingEarth's children with mirth.The daffodil yellow, The south wind so mellow,The gentle rain falling,Upon the green earth.The song sparrow singing, New life quickly springing,All nature is tellingA tale of rebirth:The deep wells of being, Beyond each day's seeing,O'er flowing with new Life,Restoring the earth.

The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere's Fa

In our natural state, we are glorious beings. In the world of illusion, we are lost and imprisoned, slaves to our appetites and our will to false power.

Marianne Williamson

Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired.

Plautus

Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman -- repose in energy.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Criticism - however valid or intellectually engaging - tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say. A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off).

J.R.R. Tolkien

Everyone believes in his youth that the world really began with him, and that all merely exists for his sake

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

Rumi

Never in our country's history have we witnessed a natural disaster that has impacted so many people in such a wide area. In fact, as of the writing of this column, millions of people along the Gulf Coast have been displaced from their homes in a period of only five days.

Jo Bonner

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight.

Theodore Roosevelt

I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.

Muhammad Ali

Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.

Theodore Roosevelt

The magic of America is that we're a free and open society with a mixed population. Part of our security is our freedom.

Madeleine Albright