To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one's self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - this is to have succeeded.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Essayist, Philosopher, and Poet, 1803 -- 1882)

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

-- Baruch Spinoza (Dutch philosopher, rationalist and lens grinder, 1632 – 1677)

"To be what we are and to become what we are capable of being is the only end in life."

-- Baruch Spinoza (Dutch philosopher, rationalist and lens grinder , 1632 – 1677)

"I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion."

-- Baruch Spinoza (Dutch philosopher, rationalist and lens grinder, 1632 – 1677)

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."
-- Jonathan Swift (Irish Writer - 1667 -- 1745)

"Friendship isn't about who you have known the longest, but about who came and never left your side."

"A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it."

-- Ambrose Bierce (American Journalist -- 1842 - 1914)

"Not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true."

-- Richard Bach (American Novelist b. 1936)

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

-- Thomas Jefferson

"Fret not when the twilight comes a knocking in your life;
I was, I am, & I will be with you till dawn emerges bright !!"

-- Behrooz K Y Avari

"It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul."
(last stanza of poem Invictus)

-- William Ernest Henley (English poet, critic, and editor, 23 August 1849 -- 11 July 1903)

"Don't be dismayed by good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends."

-- Richard Bach (American writer b. 1936)

"A woman should, I think, love her husband better than anything on
earth except her own soul, which I think a man should respect above
everything on earth but his own soul; and there my dear is a very
pretty puzzle for you, which a good many people have failed to solve."

-- Fanny Kemble (British actress and author 1809 - 1893)

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

--Leonardo da Vinci (Italian genius 1452 - 1519)