Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality. I have been for many years a teacher of languages. It is an occupation which at length becomes fatal to whatever share of imagination, observation, and insight an ordinary person may be heir to. To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.

Her eye fell everywhere on lawns and plantations of the freshest green; and the trees, though not fully clothed, were in that delightful state when farther beauty is known to be at hand, and when, while much is actually given to the sight, more yet remains for the imagination.

Jane Austen

You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.

Leonardo DaVinci

With the disappearance of God the Ego moves forward to become the sole divinity.

Dorothee Sölle, The Silent Cry:

If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

A man's character is his guardian divinity.

Heraclitus

The pursuit of truth will set you free even if you never catch up with it.

Clarence Darrow

It's a terribly hard job to spend a billion dollars and get your money's worth.

George M. Humphrey

God gives talent. Work transforms talent into genius.

Anna Pavlova

It is very hard to be simple enough to be good.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Then she was kissing him as she had never kissed him before...and it was blissful oblivion, better than firewhisky; she was the only real thing in the world.

J.K. Rowling

To work without attachment is to work without the expectation of reward or fear of any punishment in this world or the next. Work so done is a means to the end, and God is the end.

Ramakrishna

I am in the process of trying to decide whether I can make a substantive and productive contribution to the policy-making process. I was always there because I wanted to work on the pressing issues of the day - I'm interested in energy, I'm interested in the climate bill and technology policy.

Charles F. Bass