The individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to
other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his
freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others.
--Simone de Beauvoir
All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence
and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the
certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than
that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
--John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
"Wonder, rather than doubt, is the root of knowledge."
- Abraham Joshua Heschel
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
- Anne Frank
Some would be sages if they did not believe they were so already.
--Baltasar Gracián
"Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his teacher."
- Leonardo Da Vinci
We have inherited an incredibly beautiful and complex garden, but the
trouble is that we have been appallingly bad gardeners. We have not
bothered to acquaint ourselves with the simplest principles of
gardening. By neglecting our garden, we are storing up for ourselves,
in the not very distant future, a world catastrophe as bad as any
atomic war, and we are doing it with all the bland complacency of an
idiot child chopping up a Rembrandt with a pair of scissors.
--Gerald Durrell
"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."
- Abraham Lincoln
Your thought advocates fame and show. Mine counsels me and implores me
to cast aside notoriety and treat it like a grain of sand cast upon the
shore of eternity. Your thought instills in your heart arrogance and
superiority. Mine plants within me love for peace and the desire for
independence. Your thought begets dreams of palaces with furniture of
sandalwood studded with jewels, and beds made of twisted silk threads.
My thought speaks softly in my ears, "Be clean in body and spirit even
if you have nowhere to lay your head." Your thought makes you aspire to
titles and offices. Mine exhorts me to humble service.
--Khalil Gibran
"Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly."
- Leo Tolstoy
In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems
unfair that he did not also limit his stupidity.
--Konrad Adenauer
