It’s barely in the twenties outside and I’m currently running on roughly four hours of sleep. While I’m tempted to put off writing today, it just wouldn’t work with my goal of writing more this year. Today’s post is a bit different from norm but I feel it’s important to share a glimpse of my ideology and personality. In a previous post I mentioned that I tend to be much more of a quote person rather than affirmation person… narrowing my favorites down hasn’t been easy but these are the top fifty. I was able to find beauty in words and meaning, I hope these also give some inspiration to you. Here we go…

I. “Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world…would do this, it would change the earth.” – William Faulkner

II. “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell

III. “Now what else is the whole life of mortals, but a sort of comedy in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each ones part until the manager walks them off the stage?” – Erasmus

IV. “The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.” – Ben Okri

V. “May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.” – Immanuel Kant

VI. “A woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself.” – Susan B. Anthony

VII. “We are each on our own journey. Each of us is on our very own adventure; encountering all kinds of challenges, and the choices we make on that adventure will shape us as we go; these choices will stretch us, test us and push us to our limit; and our adventure will make us stronger than we ever know we could be” – Aamnah Akram

VIII. “To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive.” – David Hume

IX. “Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.” – Immanuel Kant

X. “Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” – William Faulkner

XI. “There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.” – Bryant H. McGill

XII. “Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

XIII. “Failure is an opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” – Henry Ford

XIV. “Show respect even to people who don’t deserve it; not as a reflection of their character, but as a reflection of yours.” – Dave Willis

XV. “A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.” – Immanuel Kant

XVI. “Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.” – Pablo Picasso

XVII. “I will not be another flower, picked for my beauty and left to die. I will be wild, difficult to find, and impossible to forget.” – Erin van Vuren

XVIII. “Maybe there’s something you’re afraid to say, or someone you’re afraid to love, or somewhere you’re afraid to go. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt because it matters.” – John Green

XIX. “What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.” – Albert Pine

XX. “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

XXI. “Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.” – Phaedrus

XXII. “We are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.” – Ernest Hemingway

XXIII. “Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.” – Immanuel Kant

XXIV. “I was quiet, but I was not blind.” – Jane Austen

XXV. “The earth has music for those who listen.” – William Shakespeare

XXVI. “Quiet people have the loudest minds.” – Stephen King

XXVII. “People do not realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

XXVIII. “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates

XXIX. “Never love anybody who treats you like you’re ordinary.” – Oscar Wilde

XXX. “In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.” – Immanuel Kant

XXXI. “I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint who is a sinner that keeps on trying.” – Nelson Mandela

XXXII. “You’re only given one little spark of madness, you mustn’t lose it.” – Robin Williams

XXXIII. “To make the right choices in life you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this, you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions.” – Deepak Chopra

XXXIV. “He who understands humanity seeks solitude.” – Imam Ali

XXXV. “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

XXXVI. “Always treat people as ends in themselves, never as a means to an end.” – Immanuel Kant

XXXVII. “Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.” – Ludwig von Beethoven

XXXVIII. “The only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing.” – Socrates

XXXIX. “Being deeply loved gives you strength; loving deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu

XL. “Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle of lotteries, dating, and religion.” – Scott Adams

XLI. “Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.” – Nikola Tesla

XLII. “Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past, or a pioneer of the future.” – Deepak Chopra

XLIII. “I might disagree with your opinion, but I am willing to give my life for your right to express it.” – Voltaire

XLIV. “Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.” – Bertrand Russel

XLV. “You cannot look into someone’s soul and not fall in love with them. I looked into your soul once, I am trapped for eternity.” – Cynthia Go

XLVI. “A serious girl, when she finds someone who calms her spirit and quiets her busy thoughts, will love you so fiercely, it will defy even her own logic and reasoning.” – Unknown

XLVII. “I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.” – Jane Austen

XLVIII. “In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.” – Abraham Maslow

XLIX. “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein

L. “Believe you can shine when you’re silver and I promise you gold.” – Justin Furstenfeld

 

Perhaps you found a quote or two that speak to your soul the way they did to mine. Stay warm friends, I’m off in search of more coffee.

 

Ciao,

Morgan