Come forth into the light of things. Let Nature be your teacher.
–William Wordsworth

Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don’t think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you retire. –Samuel Johnson

Men spend their lives in anticipations,—in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.  –Charles Caleb Colton

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though ’twere his own. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. –Martin Luther King Jr.