Courage

To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage.
--Henri Matisse

Preschool

Goldman Sachs has 14 business principles, many of which could apply to a preschool. ("We stress creativity and imagination.")
--Daniel Gross

They Will End

This is the cruelty of middle age, I find: just when things have gotten good--really, really, consistently good--I have become aware that they will end.
--Judith Warner

Enlightenment

From the dawn of human consciousness, when people became aware that they were going to die and didn't like the idea, there have always been "gurus," and priests and preachers, shamans, wizards, oracles, spiritual "advisors," and self-help "experts," who've seen the quest for enlightenment and the search for heaven as a opportunity to make a fast buck.
--Lance Mannion

Rational

Looking back over human history, rationality has been the anomaly. Being rational takes work, education, and a sober determination to avoid making hasty inferences, even when they appear to make perfect sense.
--Amy Wallace

Realism

I've always thought sports teach realism: What you can do, what you can't, how to win, how to lose, how to deal with it.
--Gene Lyons

Evil

Bailing out corporations with billions (who then give their executives lavish bonuses) while we cannot help those in desperate need and misery--this is the epitome of evil.
--Andy Vortex

Individual

Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
--Ambrose Bierce

Since the Days

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the United States since the days of Andrew Jackson.
--Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Surely Tested

Man's mind is much more taken with appearances than with reality. This can be easily and surely tested by going to church. When anything serious is being said, the congregation dozes or squirms. But if the ranter--I mean the reverend--begins some old wives' tale, everyone wakes up and strains to hear.
--Desiderus Erasmus (The Praise of Folly, circa 1668)

Reasons

The awful thing about life is this: Everyone has his reasons.
--Jean Renoir

Truth

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of telling the truth.
--Lillian Hellman

Fragile and Forgettable

That is what fall means...It's maple trees telling us about mortality and that life is short and can't be put on Pause and each of us is as fragile and forgettable as a maple tree.
--Garrison Keillor

Hawaii

You can't really understand Barack until you understand Hawaii.
--Michelle Obama

Pick Battles

Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
--Jonathan Kozol

Unique Gift

That is the unique gift that humans have above all animals: they can share their death with each other.
--William Barrett

Doubts

God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of.
--Bruce Springsteen

Holding

There is no greater agony than holding an untold story inside of you.
--Maya Angelou

New Media

This is the beauty of new media: It isn't so transitory as newspapers and TV. Good stuff sticks around and people e-mail it to friends and slowly it floods the country.
--Garrison Keillor