Helen Keller

I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.

Desiderius Erasmus

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.

J. R. R. Tolkien

His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.

John Lubbock

“A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work.”

Anonymous

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

Henry David Thoreau

Do what you love. Know your own bone, gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

Jane Tompkins

-from A Life in School:

My chief concern is that our educational system does not focus on the inner lives of students or help them to acquire the self understanding that is the basis for a satisfying life. Nor, by and large, does it provide the safe and nurturing environment that people need in order to grow.

C. Northcote Parkinson

Courtesy is a silver lining around the dark clouds of civilization; it is the best part of refinement and in many ways, an art of heroic beauty in the vast gallery of man’s cruelty and baseness.

Marshall McLuhan

If the temperature in the bathtub is raised only one degree every ten minutes, how does the bather know when to start screaming?

Henry Clay

The courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest to the grateful and appreciating heart.