Quotes--Food-for-Thought

I've been collecting quotes for over thirty years, things people have said that are wise, inspiring, thought-provoking, or humorous that have had a nurturing and sustaining

effect on my life and at times helped make it seem like it's worth the effort, or at least

got me through the day. Don't make the mistake of assuming I live up to them, but

they remind me of how I want to try to think and live, giving me a direction I want to

move toward. This page is dedicated to those little bon mots with the hope that some

may serve others the way they have me.

History is not something that takes place “elsewhere”; it takes place

here; we all contribute to making it.

Vaclav Havel

We ourselves are events in history [and] things do not merely happen

to us, they happen through us . . . Our individual tensions are simply

the new thing growing through us into the life of mankind.

Scottish philosopher John Macmurray

First they fascinate the fools. Then they muzzle the intelligent.

Bertrand Russell

Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be

in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of

the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to

comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

Albert Einstein

The cutting of the gem has to be finished before you can see whether

it shines.

Leonard Cohen

Rich people are careless. They break things. F Scott Fitzgerald

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with

gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum

is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element

for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.

Carl Jung

[The] man who thinks he can live without myth, or outside it, like one

uprooted, has no true link either with the past, or with the ancestral

life which continues within him, or yet with contemporary human

society. This plaything of his reason never grips his vitals.

Carl Jung

The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the

core of strength within you that survives all hurt.

Max Lerner

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

J. D. Salinger

You grow up the day you have the first real laugh at yourself.

Ethel Barrymore

This is a time when it is frightening to be alive, when it is hard to think of human beings as rational creatures. We become hypnotized, and do not notice . . . equally strong forces on the other side, the forces, in short, of reason, sanity and civilization.

Doris Lessing

A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right, and evil doesn’t become good just because it’s accepted by a majority.

Booker T Washington

We made the world we’re living in and we have to make it over.

James Baldwin

The human species is an integrated part of the life on our planet, not an exceptional creation by itself . . . If a kind of magic quickens the sinews

of living things, then humans simply possess a share in a sacred cosmos.

Loren Eiseley

I think that's the moment when we all grow up, when we stop blaming our

parents for the messes we've made out of our lives and start owning the consequences of our actions.

Lisa Unger