"We are a collage of our interests, our influences, our inspirations, all the fragmentary impressions we've collected by being alive and awake to the world. Who we "are" is simply a finely curated catalog of those." ~ Maria Popova

"When we are bursting with some wordless experience, Art is our voice, the song of the heart." ~ Richard Schmid

"Everybody else shares the same cloudy sky." ~ Joe Walsh

"The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our own virtues." ~ William Shakespeare

"Think beyond the vase! If you have a vase of flowers on a dining table for a quick dinner party, think about scattering flower petals, leaves, or even fruit along the tabletop." ~ Clinton Smith

"Around us, life bursts with miracles, a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops." ~ Nhat Hanh

"Every conscious act requires risk. Every conscious act requires decision. Put these two facts together and you realize that the secret to life is not to avoid gambling but to gamble well." ~ Mike Caro

"Heavy blizzards start as a gentle and persistent snow." ~ Mark Helprin

"They who set an example make a highway. Others follow the example, because it is easier to travel on a highway than over untrodden grounds." ~ Horace Mann

"Equal partners aren't always what we envision as being manifestly equal. Equality can come in many different shapes and sizes and combinations." ~ Ben Kingsley (The Thursday Murder Club)

"If we are to have any hope for the future, those who have lanterns must pass them on to others." ~ Plato

"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead." ~ Louisa May Alcott

"People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering." ~ Saint Augustine

"Friends hold a mirror up to each other; through that mirror they can see each other in ways that would not otherwise be accessible to them, and it is this mirroring that helps them improve themselves as persons." ~ Aristotle

"People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don't find myself saying, ‘Soften the orange a bit on the righthand corner.’ I don't try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds." ~ Carl Rogers

"All the fun is locking horns with impossibilities." ~ Claes Oldenburg

"Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them." ~ David Hume

"Still, I wonder if more women artists, musicians and writers aren't household names because we don't have enough faith in our own pursuits to give ourselves the time we desperately need to be transformed by a creative vision. Maybe that glass ceiling isn't really made of glass at all, but of sticky little fingers, dishes piled in the sink, and mortgages that demand two incomes." ~ Holly Robinson Peete

"My mentor said, 'Let's go do it', not 'You go do it'. How powerful when someone says, 'Let's!'" ~ Jim Rohn

"The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation of virtue and vice." ~ Quintilian