You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.

~ Billie Holiday, jazz singer and songwriter (1915-1959)

Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.

~ William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)

Seek not to follow in the footsteps of men of old; seek what they sought.

~ Matsuo Basho, poet (1644-1694)

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.

~ James M. Barrie, novelist and playwright (1860-1937)

Life is an adventure in forgiveness. 

~ Norman Cousins, author and editor (1915-1990)

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

~ Leo Buscaglia, author (1924-1998)

The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.

~ Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)

How would you describe the difference between modern war and modern industry -- between, say, bombing and strip mining, or between chemical warfare and chemical manufacturing? The difference seems to be only that in war the victimization of humans is directly intentional and in industry it is "accepted" as a "trade-off".

~ Wendell Berry, farmer, author (b.1934)

Every increased possession loads us with new weariness. 

~ John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)