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II · The Wisdom Archives

What others have said about being alive.

Browse by theme, era, or thinker. Save what speaks to you.

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What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.
— Meister Eckhart
150 results
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What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.
— Hillel the Elder
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Know thyself.
— Inscription at Delphi
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The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
— Laozi
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When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
— Laozi
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He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.
— Laozi
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It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
— Confucius
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When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, do not adjust the goals — adjust the action steps.
— Confucius
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Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
— Confucius
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Great souls have wills; feeble ones have only wishes.
— Confucius
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From caring comes courage.
— Laozi
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The unexamined life is not worth living.
— Socrates
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I know that I know nothing.
— Socrates
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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
— Aristotle
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Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
— Aristotle
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Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
— Aristotle
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We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
— Seneca
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Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
— Seneca
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It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it.
— Seneca
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You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
— Marcus Aurelius
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The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.
— Marcus Aurelius
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Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
— Marcus Aurelius
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The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
— Marcus Aurelius
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Man is disturbed not by things, but by the views he takes of them.
— Epictetus
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It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
— Epictetus
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No man is free who is not master of himself.
— Epictetus
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He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
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Not to feel that one's existence is meaningless is the highest joy.
— The Buddha
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Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
— The Buddha
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You only lose what you cling to.
— The Buddha
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No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
— The Buddha
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What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.
— Meister Eckhart
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If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is 'thank you,' it will be enough.
— Meister Eckhart
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There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.
— Rumi
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The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
— Rumi
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Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
— Rumi
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Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
— Rumi
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What you seek is seeking you.
— Rumi
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Patience is the key to joy.
— Rumi
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Trust in God — but tie up your camel.
— Sufi proverb
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The intelligent want self-control; children want candy.
— Rumi
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The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.
— Leonardo da Vinci
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Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
— Leonardo da Vinci
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I think, therefore I am.
— René Descartes
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He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.
— Aristotle
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The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
— Blaise Pascal
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All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
— Blaise Pascal
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Man is condemned to be free.
— Jean-Paul Sartre
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Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
— Søren Kierkegaard
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Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
— Søren Kierkegaard
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To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.
— Søren Kierkegaard
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That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
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Become who you are.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
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And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
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In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
— Albert Camus
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One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
— Albert Camus
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There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.
— Albert Camus
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Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
— Jean-Paul Sartre
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Hell is other people.
— Jean-Paul Sartre
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Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.
— Martin Luther
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Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
— Mary Oliver
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Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.
— Viktor Frankl
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When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
— Viktor Frankl
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Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.
— Viktor Frankl
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The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.
— Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
— Helen Keller
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The only journey is the one within.
— Rainer Maria Rilke
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Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
— Rainer Maria Rilke
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The only way out is through.
— Robert Frost
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In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
— Robert Frost
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Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
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The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
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The function of freedom is to free someone else.
— Toni Morrison
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If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.
— Toni Morrison
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There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
— Maya Angelou
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I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
— Maya Angelou
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We accept the love we think we deserve.
— Stephen Chbosky
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It is never too late to be what you might have been.
— George Eliot
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What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.
— Henry David Thoreau
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The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
— Henry David Thoreau
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Not all those who wander are lost.
— J.R.R. Tolkien
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All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
— J.R.R. Tolkien
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If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.
— J.K. Rowling
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It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
— J.K. Rowling
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Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.
— Brené Brown
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Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.
— Brené Brown
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There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.
— 1 John 4:18
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Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.
— Victor Hugo
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To love another person is to see the face of God.
— Victor Hugo
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There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.
— J.R.R. Tolkien
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If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
— Gospel of Thomas
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Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. I have walked myself into my best thoughts.
— Søren Kierkegaard
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The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
— Carl Jung
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Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
— Carl Jung
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The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.
— Ernest Hemingway
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All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.
— Ernest Hemingway
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The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love.
— Bill O'Hanlon
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We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are.
— Anaïs Nin
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And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
— Anaïs Nin
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The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
— Laozi
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When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
— Buddhist proverb
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Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
— Confucius
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Have a mind that is open to everything, attached to nothing.
— Zen saying
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If you want to find God, hang out in the space between your thoughts.
— Zen saying
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When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
— Laozi
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Nothing in nature blooms all year. Be patient with yourself.
— Proverb
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We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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Imagination is more important than knowledge.
— Albert Einstein
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Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
— Albert Einstein
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Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
— Albert Einstein
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We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
— Oscar Wilde
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Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde
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To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
— Oscar Wilde
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The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
— Dorothy Parker
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I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
— Thomas Edison
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Whether you think you can, or you think you can't — you're right.
— Henry Ford
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Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
— Mark Twain
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The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
— Mark Twain
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I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.
— Louisa May Alcott
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If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one.
— Dolly Parton
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Hope is a thing with feathers — that perches in the soul — and sings the tune without the words.
— Emily Dickinson
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I dwell in possibility.
— Emily Dickinson
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If we wait until we're ready, we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives.
— Lemony Snicket
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Stories are how we make sense of being alive.
— Bill O'Hanlon
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Solitude is where I place my chaos to rest and awaken my inner peace.
— Nikki Rowe
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Healing comes in waves — and maybe today the wave hits the rocks. That's ok, darling. You are still healing.
— Ijeoma Umebinyuo
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What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
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It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.
— Lou Holtz
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We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
— Maya Angelou
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The first to apologize is the bravest. The first to forgive is the strongest. The first to forget is the happiest.
— Proverb
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Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.
— Hubert Humphrey
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If you can't fly, then run; if you can't run, then walk; if you can't walk, then crawl. But by all means, keep moving.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
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We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
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Tears are words that need to be written.
— Paulo Coelho
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When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
— Paulo Coelho
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One day or day one. You decide.
— Proverb
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Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
— Voltaire
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Common sense is not so common.
— Voltaire
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I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear.
— Rosa Parks
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Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
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We are all broken. That's how the light gets in.
— Leonard Cohen
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The future depends on what you do today.
— Mahatma Gandhi
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Be the change that you wish to see in the world.
— Mahatma Gandhi
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
— Mahatma Gandhi
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There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
— Zora Neale Hurston
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If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.
— Emily Dickinson
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Death is nothing else but going home to God; the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity.
— Mother Teresa
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Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
— Mother Teresa
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We rise by lifting others.
— Robert Ingersoll
The Thinkers

Thirty faces who wrote it down.