“It is not the light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.” - Frederick Douglass

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness." Desmond Tutu

“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.” Henry David Thoreau

"Life is short, live it. Love is rare, grab it. Anger is bad, dump it. Fear is awful, face it. Memories are sweet. Cherish them." – Spanish Proverb

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” - Ernest Hemingway

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”  - Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“The worst is not death but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous.” – Henry Miller, Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — God, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”  Steve Jobs

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." Eleanor Roosevelt

“One day if I go to heaven…I’ll look around and say 'It ain’t bad, but it ain’t San Francisco'. “ – Herb Caen

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anais Nin

“In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.” - Rachel Carson

"All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together." Jack Kerouac

“When your life flashes before your eyes, make sure you’ve got plenty to watch.” Unknown

“Be who you are because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”  FDR presidential advisor Bernard Baruch