"If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up some place else."
                                          - Yogi BerraYogi Berra

"Often it isn't the mountains ahead that wear you out, it's the little pebble in your shoe." 
                                    -Muhammad Ali

"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones."
                                                                  – Phillips Brooks

About Phillips Brooks

Phillips Brooks, the American clergyman now mostly known for writing the words to the Christmas song, "O Little Town of Bethlehem," was one of the most influential ministers of his time, with his sermons reprinted in major newspapers. He delivered the eulogy at Abraham Lincoln's funeral. Born in Boston in 1835, he spent most of his life there as overseer of Harvard University, rector of Trinity Church, and bishop of Massachusetts. He died in 1893, and the day of his funeral was declared an official day of mourning.

               "I'd rather regret the things I've done
               than regret the things I haven't done."
                                                                                   - Lucile Ball

"Gratitude is the open door to abundance."
-Yogi BahjanYogi Bhajan

      "A man cannot be comfortable
         without his own approval."
                                                    – Mark Twain

About Mark Twain

Samuel Clemens, the iconic American humorist and writer, is better known by his pen name Mark Twain. He was born in 1835 in Missouri. He worked at several jobs, including steamboat pilot and miner. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, and other successful novels. His writing captured a very American vernacular and flavor, and helped create a distinctive American literature. He died in 1910.

"You're only given a little spark of madness.
             You mustn't lose it."
                                             – Robin Williams

"I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it."
- Harry Emerson Fosdick

"It's a funny thing about life;
if you refuse to accept
anything but the best,
you very often get it."
- W. Somerset Maugham

"Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering."
                                         -Saint Augustine

               "When the heart speaks,
         the mind finds it indecent to object."
                                                                 – Milan Kundera

About Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera, the modernist Czech novelist best known for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, laces politics and philosophical digressions into his complex narrative structure. He was born in 1929 on April Fool's Day, and his first novel was, appropriately enough, The Joke. An ardent reformist, he was ejected from the Communist party twice for speaking out against repression. In 1975, he fled to France, where he still teaches.

"Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody."
                                          – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

About Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a beloved American poet of the 19th century, is best known for "The Song of Hiawatha" and "Evangeline." He was born in Maine in 1807. He knew Latin by the age of six, and when he taught at Bowdoin College, he wrote the textbooks himself. He courted his second wife while teaching at Harvard and frequently walked the several miles from Cambridge to Boston across the West Boston Bridge. The bridge that replaced it was named the Longfellow Bridge in his honor. He died in 1882.

    "Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea,
      never regains its original dimensions."
                                                – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

About Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., one of the greatest American jurists of the twentieth century, was called the Great Dissenter because of the brilliance of his dissenting opinions. He was born in Boston in 1841 and was named for his father, the author and doctor. He was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1902 and became known for his pithy, quotable opinions. He stood strong on free-speech rights and was an advocate of judicial restraint and objectivity. He died in 1935.

            "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. 
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful
beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us. We ask ourselves:
'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, 
      talented and fabulous?'
           Actually, who are you not to be?"
                                               -Nelson Madellla Nelson Mandela

Ever so often I need to be reminded
of this. Come to think of it, I did
not get to the top of Longs Peak in
a single bound!

   "Victory is won not in miles but in inches.
     Win a little now, hold your ground,
     and later, win a little more."
                                                                     – Louis L'Amour

About Louis L'Amour

Louis L'Amour, the author known for his pulp westerns, wrote more than 100 novels in his lifetime. Born in North Dakota in 1908 as Louis LaMoore, he worked across the southwestern U.S. on a string of backbreaking jobs including longshoreman, elephant handler, and cattle skinner. He saw his writing as akin to telling tales by a campfire and wanted to be remembered simply as a good storyteller. He won the Medal of Freedom in 1984 and died in 1988.

 

"Your vision will become clear only when
  you look into your heart. Who looks outside,
  dreams. Who looks inside, awakens."
                                                                     – Carl Jung

About Carl Jung

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who originated such well-known psychological concepts as the archetype and the collective unconscious, has provided inspiration to people ranging from Joseph Campbell to Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. He was born in 1875 in a small town; he studied with Sigmund Freud before parting ways due to the radical difference in their views of human nature. Jung is considered second only to Freud in his influence on modern psychology, particularly in the area of dream analysis. He died in 1961.

   "Nothing will ever be attempted if all
possible objections must first be overcome."
                                                Samuel Johnson

About Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson, the sharp-witted British essayist, wrote the first English language dictionary; his definitions still form the backbone of current dictionaries. He was born in Staffordshire in 1709. Johnson married a widow 20 years his senior and lived in poverty before achieving success with his essays when he was in his forties. Later in life, he befriended the young James Boswell, whose Life of Johnson became the quintessential English biography. Johnson died in 1784.

"I, not events, have the power to make me

           happy or unhappy today.

      I can choose which it shall be."
                                                             – Groucho Marx

About Groucho Marx

Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was the wisecracking central figure of the Marx Brothers comedy team, waggling his eyebrows in movies like Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera. He was born in New York in 1890. His mother organized the family into a vaudeville act, which didn't become successful until Groucho began ad-libbing jokes and insults. In the forties and fifties, he hosted the wildly successful radio and TV quiz show You Bet Your Life. He died in 1977.

          "Let your hook be always cast;
      in the pool where you least expect it,
                there will be a fish."
                                                                         – Ovid

About Ovid

"Publius Ovidius Naso, the Roman poet known as Ovid, best known for the epic Metamorphoses, is considered one of the greatest poets of Latin literature. He was born in 43 B.C. in what is now Italy. He rose quickly in Roman government and was on track to become a senator when he chose to devote himself to poetry instead. His tale of Pyramus and Thisbe is the source for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Emperor Augustus exiled Ovid from Rome for unknown reasons in 8 A.D.; he died in exile in 17 A.D. "

"This above all, To Thine Own Self Be True."
                                        - William Shakespeare