Take the first step, and your mind will mobilize all its forces to your aid. But the first essential is that you begin. Once the battle is startled, all that is within and without you will come to your assistance.

Decisive inventions and discoveries always are initiated by an intellectual or moral stimulus as their actual motivating force, but, usually, the final impetus to human action is given by material impulses ... merchants stood as a driving force behind the heroes of the age of discovery; this first heroic impulse to conquer the world emanated from very mortal forces

Stefan Zweig, Magellan. Der Mann

Every new development for the last three centuries has brought men closer to a state of affairs in which absolutely nothing would be recognized in the whole world as possessing a claim to obedience except the authority of the State. The majority of people in Europe obey nothing else.

Simone Weil

Youth does not require reasons for living, it only needs pretexts.

Jos

Three things give us hardy strength: sleeping on hairy mattresses, breathing cold air, and eating dry food.

Proverb

We feel at first as if some opportunities of kindness and sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that any pure grief is ample recompense for all. That is, if we are faithful; -- for a spent grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is as natural as the resin of Arabian trees. -- Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not.

Henry David Thoreau

Pray that you will never have to bear all that you are able to endure.

Yiddish Proverb

If there's one observation that rings true in today's changing world, it is that freedom and peace go hand in hand.

Ronald Reagan

A woman should be like a single flower, not a whole bouquet.

Anna Held

The headline is the most important element of an ad. It must offer a promise to the reader of a believable benefit. And it must be phrased in a way to make it memorable.

Morris Hite

The well-being and welfare of children should always be our focus.

Todd Tiahrt

I remember in high school trying to get home from water-polo practice in time so I could see Happy Days on television when it first came on, because I was so blown away by it. It was just such a cool thing.

Ted McGinley

and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.

James Joyce