“Good actions give strength to ourselves, and inspire good actions in others.”  --Samuel Smiles

“But do you really mean, sir,” said Peter, “that there could be other worlds--all over the place, just round the corner--like that?” “Nothing is more probable,” said the Professor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, “I wonder what they do to teach them at these schools.”  --C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe 

"When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space that I occupy, and even that which I see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me, I am terrified, and am amazed that I am here rather than there, for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then."  --Blaise Pascal

"A lot of people read, not enough people re-read. Don’t just read books, re-read books. There’s a great line the Stoics loved — that we never step in the same river twice. The books don’t change, but you do."  --Ryan Holiday, 26 Rules to Be a Better Thinker in 2026

https://ryanholiday.medium.com/26-rules-to-be-a-better-thinker-in-2026-6393399aad3d

“Things do not ‘happen.’ Things are made to happen.”  --John F. Kennedy

"Deformity is commonly hideous in its effects. It corrodes character, leading to deceit, treachery, malignity and false living; and as often as not vitiates those entangled in the sufferer’s life as much as the sufferer himself."  --Ashley Montagu

"One doesn't work for effects, and one doesn't set up in the artist business. One studies and learns and works and thinks to develop oneself as an intelligent, sensitive, and aware human being: and out of the always-increasing resources of intelligence, sensitivity, and awareness, the human being makes music."  --Leonard Bernstein