Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist, philosopher and poet

George Santayana

"To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring."

- George Santayana, philosopher, poet, author

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist, philosopher, poet

George Santayana

"Sanity is a madness put to good use."

- George Santayana, philosopher, poet, author

Alan Watts

"Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth."

- Alan Watts, philosopher, author, orator

Friedrich Engels

"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory."

- Friedrich Engels, philosopher, author, economist

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The really unhappy person is the one who leaves undone what they can do, and starts doing what they don't understand; no wonder they come to grief.”

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, writer, philosopher and intellectual

Erich Fromm

"Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is."

- Erich Fromm, psychologist, philsopher and author

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist, philosopher, poet

Alan Watts

"Faith is, above all, openness; an act of trust in the unknown."

- Alan Watts, philosopher, author, orator

Bertrand Russell

"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin - more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man."

- Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, historian

Francis Bacon

"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion."

- Francis Bacon, philosopher, statesman, scientist, author, lawyer

Albert Camus

"Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question."

- Albert Camus, author, philosopher and journalist

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.”

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, writer, philosopher and intellectual

Voltaire

“If there were no God, it would have been necessary to invent him.”

- Voltaire, writer and philosopher

Aristotle

"Happiness depends on ourselves."

- Aristotle, philosopher

William Hazlitt

"The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves."

- William Hazlitt, author, philosopher and critic

Lao-Tzu

"To be worn out is to be renewed."

- Lao-tzu, philosopher

Francis Bacon

"They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea."

- Francis Bacon, philosopher, statesman, scientist, author, lawyer

Bertrand Russell

"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted."

- Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, historian