What would you do if you weren't afraid? - Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

O, hereWill I set up my everlasting rest,And shake the yoke of inauspicious starsFrom this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O youThe doors of breath, seal with a righteous kissA dateless bargain to engrossing death! - William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent. - Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all. - Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The shortest distance between two people is a smile. - Victor Borge

The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. - C.S. Lewis

You can't dwell on what might have been...and it's not fair to condemn him for something he hasn't done. - Wendelin Van Draanen, Flipped

God has given us more than fourteen billion cells and connections in our brain. Why would God give us such a complex organ system unless he expects us to use it? - Ben Carson

Well-behaved women seldom make history. - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone. - Martin Luther

If I had a camera,' I said, 'I'd take a picture of you every day. That way I'd remember how you looked every single day of your life. - Nicole Krauss

In my world, you don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and be against common-sense gun control — like banning public access to the kind of semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a Colorado theater. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma, preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children...The term “pro-life” should be a shorthand for respect for the sanctity of life. But I will not let that label apply to people for whom sanctity for life begins at conception and ends at birth. What about the rest of life? Respect for the sanctity of life, if you believe that it begins at conception, cannot end at birth. - Thomas L. Friedman

How would your life be different if…You didn’t allow yourself to be defined by your past? Let today be the day…You stop letting your history interfere with your destiny and awaken to the opportunity to release your greatest self. - Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

What made you fall in love with a prostitute?”“I didn’t understand it myself at the time. But I’ve thought about it since, and I think it was because, knowing that your body would never be mine alone, I had to concentrate on conquering your soul. - Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. - John Muir

I used to spend so much time reacting and responding to everyone else that my life had no direction. Other people's lives, problems, and wants set the course for my life. Once I realized it was okay for me to think about and identify what I wanted, remarkable things began to take place in my life. - Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go: Daily Meditations on Codependency

The institutions of human society treat us as parts of a machine. They assign us ranks and place considerable pressure upon us to fulfill defined roles. We need something to help us restore our lost and distorted humanity. Each of us has feelings that have been suppressed and have built up inside. There is a voiceless cry resting in the depths of our souls, waiting for expression. Art gives the soul's feelings voice and form. - Daisaku Ikeda

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...well I have others. - Groucho Marx

You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound. - P.G. Wodehouse, Carry on, Jeeves

Compromise is a stalling between two fools. - Stephen Fry