"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

"Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow."
- Swedish Proverb

    "We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
                                                 – Aristotle

"I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that don't work."
- Thomas Alva Edison

"Only by acceptance of the past can you alter it."
                                                                  – T.S. Eliot

About T.S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot, the Nobel Prize–winning poet, is perhaps best known today for a light book of rhymes that became the Broadway hit Cats. He penned such weightier poems as "The Waste Land," "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and "Four Quartets." His work is rich with deeply felt religious meditations, but he never wanted to be perceived as a religious poet. He was born in 1888 in St. Louis and made his adult home in England, where he worked as an editor at the publisher Faber & Faber. He died in 1965.

"It's never too late to be who you might have been."
                                                                        – George Eliot

About George Eliot

George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, the Victorian author known for her psychologically astute novels set in small English towns. She was born on a farm in England in 1819 and wrote several acclaimed novels, including Middlemarch, The Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner. She lived with George Henry Lewes for several years, which was considered highly scandalous at the time. She died in 1880.