“What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others remains and is immortal.”
Albert Pike (1809-1881)
Attorney, soldier, Freemason, writer
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“I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
Stephen Grellet (1773-1855)
Quaker missionary
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“We knew the desolation of great heights,
And the contentment of deep valleys.
We saw the moon leap silver from the mountain peaks
And watched the red sun die in a welter of mists on the horizon.
We knew the white, swift decline of vast snow fields
And the small beauty of forest flowers.
Our dreams rose with the smoke of our campfires in the wilderness,
And our friendship glowed in their embers.
We shared hunger, thirst, and the great
struggle toward the mountain tops
As we shared the peace, good food, and
pleasant rest of our night camps.
All these things entered into the pattern
of our friendship and made it fine.
These things we knew together…..
And these things we shall remember.”
Don Blanding (1894-1953)
poet, speaker, journalist
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“And have you traveled very far?
Far as the eye can see.
How often have you been there?
Often enough to know.
What did you see when you were there?
Nothing that doesn’t show.”
John Lennon & Paul McCartney
from an old Beatles song
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“Old friends cannot be created out of hand.Nothing can match the treasure of common memories, of trials endured together, of quarrels and reconciliations, and generous emotions. It is idle, having planted an acorn in the morning, to expect that afternoon to sit in the shade the oak. For years we plant the seed and the trees grow; we feel ourselves rich; but then come other years when time does its work, and our plantation is made sparse and thin.”
From Wind, Sand, and Stars, 1939
Antoine de Saint Exupery (1900 – 1944)
French writer, poet, pioneering aviator
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Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunset on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
of quiet bird encircled flight.
I am the soft star that shines at night.
So do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
Mary Elizabeth Frye
Baltimore housewife (1905 – 2004)
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I regard the foremost task of education to inspire these qualities: an enterprising curiosity; tenacity in pursuit; readiness for sensible self-denial; and above all, compassion.
Kurt Hahn (1886 – 1974)
founder of Outward Bound, educator, writer
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Oh, Lord, help us to meet life eagerly and unafraid; to refuse none of its challenges, and to evade none of its responsibilities; but to go forth daily with an adventurous heart to encounter life’s risks, overcome its difficulties, and seize its opportunities with both hands.
John Oldham (1653 – 1683)
passionate satirist, poet, translator
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Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.
Rita Mae Brown? b.1944
prolific American writer
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Something hidden. Go and find it.
Go and look behind the ranges.
Something lost behind the ranges.
Lost and waiting for you. Go!
From The Explorer, a poem, 1898
Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936)
poet, journalist, novelist, short story writer
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Listen to the exhortation of the dawn
Look to this day.
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the varieties
And realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendor of beauty;
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
But today well lived makes every
Yesterday a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day.
Such is the salutation of the dawn.
From the Sanskrit
Kalidosa
5th century poet and dramatist. Said to be India’s greatest writer
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Climb the mountains and get their
good tidings.
Nature’s peace will flow into you as
sunshine flows into the trees.
The winds will blow their freshness into
you and storms their energy.
While cares will drop away from you
like the leaves of autumn.
John Muir (1838 – 1914)
Scottish-American naturalist, author, philosopher, co-founder of the Sierra Club
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There are periods of time when things aren’t going right – when all the plans you’ve made appear to be out of reach forever. But, as I have come to know, the darkest and most difficult moments in life usually signal the end of troubles and forecast better days ahead. From our saddest moments we are able to gain strength, confidence, and courage, and the knowledge that a new and brighter day is just over the horizon.
Demitrel Garrison
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“THINKING”, 1905
If you think you’re beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost.
For out in the world you’ll find
Success begins with the will –
It’s all in the state of mind.
Walter D. Wintle, late 18th cent. poet
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered with failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows no victory no defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919)
26th U.S. President, politician
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The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began,
Now far ahead the road has gone,
And I must follow it if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet
And wither then? I cannot say.
From “Lord of the Rings”
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973)
British poet, writer, philologist
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Grownups have a strange way of
putting themselves in compartments
and groups. They build up barriers:
of religion, of caste, of color, of party,
of nation, of province, of language, of custom, and wealth, and poverty. Thus they live in prisons of their own making.
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 – 1964)
1st. Prime Minister of Independent India