The truth is the light and the light is the truth. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man In his groundbreaking 1952 book “Invisible Man,” Ralph Ellison introduces an unnamed African American narrator who relates his story from a basement-dwelling lit with 1,369 light bulbs. This room filled with light represents the man’s choice to see his life […]
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present … fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. Abraham Lincoln (1862), on the imperative of winning the Civil War
Knowledge is in every Country the surest basis of public happiness. George Washington (1790), urging the pursuit of science in his first address on the State of the Union.
“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
What need you, being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone; For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.
Right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past. Tryon Edwards, theologian
Be not simply good – be good for something. Henry David Thoreau
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled. Plutarch
The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy. Meryl Streep
You should never, never doubt what nobody is sure about. Willy Wonka, paraphrasing a line from Helaire Beloc’s “The Microbe” (1897)
