Hope & Perseverance

Spontaneous love can reach the point of despair, shows that it is in despair, that even when it is happy it loves with the power of despair.

Søren Kierkegaard Either/Or & Journals

Obit anus, abit onus" reflects Schopenhauer's relief and resentment at the death of a seamstress he'd been forced to financially support after a disputed assault.

Arthur Schopenhauer Parerga and Paralipomena

We have never intended to enlighten shoemakers and servants—this is up to apostles.

Voltaire Candide & Philosophical Dictionary

Wealth brings a heavy purse; poverty, a light spirit.

Leo Tolstoy War and Peace & A Calendar of Wisdom

What light through yonder window breaks?

William Shakespeare First Folio & Sonnets

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

Oscar Wilde De Profundis & Essays

I am persuaded that the future historian of America will find your works as indispensable to him as a French historian finds the political tracts of Voltaire.

Mark Twain Notebooks & Autobiography

[A] great original thinker, who had his earthly abode at the opposite extremity of our village. ... People that had lighted on a new thought or a thought that they fancied new, came to Emerson, as the finder of a glittering gem hastens to a lapidary.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays: First and Second Series

It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves.

Henry David Thoreau Walden

I have no other wish in this world but to find light and joy and peace through Hinduism.

Mahatma Gandhi The Story of My Experiments with Truth

Nothing can dim the light that shines from within

Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings & Essays

Attributed to Einstein by physicist John Wheeler, "If I can't picture it, I can't understand it" highlights the importance of visualization in grasping complex physics concepts.

Albert Einstein Ideas and Opinions

Humans are very good at dreaming, although you'd never know it from your television.

Carl Sagan Cosmos & Pale Blue Dot

Light finds her treasure of colours through the antagonism of clouds.

Rabindranath Tagore Gitanjali & Stray Birds

He was gentle, like a man mindful of his own strength. In my dreams I beheld the kings of the earth standing in awe in His presence.

Kahlil Gibran The Prophet

The point, as Marx saw it, is that dreams never come true.

Hannah Arendt The Human Condition

Try to stay a man amongst men … There's no other hope for you.

Simone de Beauvoir The Ethics of Ambiguity

A world without delight and without affection is a world destitute of value.

Bertrand Russell The Conquest of Happiness

Every step I take in light is mine forever.

Swami Vivekananda Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

The enlightened ruler is heedful, and the good general full of caution.

Sun Tzu The Art of War

For as lack of adornment is said to become some women, so this subtle oration, though without embellishment, gives delight.

Cicero De Officiis & Tusculan Disputations

It is no advantage to be near the light if the eyes are closed.

Augustine of Hippo Confessions

God only pours out his light into the mind after having subdued the rebellion of the will by an altogether heavenly gentleness which charms and wins it.

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Every pleasure defers to its last its greatest delights.

Seneca Moral Letters to Lucilius

Those of our pleasures which come most rarely give the greatest delight.

Epictetus Discourses & Enchiridion

He who has lived as a true philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, and that after death he may hope to receive the greatest good in the other world.

Socrates Apology (via Plato)