1. We can learn even from our enemies. - Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BC -17/18 AD), commonly known Ovid was a Ancient Roman poet who is best known for his mythological poem, Metamorphoses; his two collections of poems, Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto; and for his three collections of erotic poetry, Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria. Ovid was also the author of several smaller pieces and the long curse-poem, Ibis. He is considered a master of the elegiac couplet and is ranked alongside of Vigil and Horace as one of the three greatest Latin poets. His poetry influenced art and literature particularly during the late Roman Empire and Middle Ages periods.
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2. Guilt is a rope that wears thin. - Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand (born: Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum;1905-1982) was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright and screenwriter. . Born and educated in Russia, Rand moved to the United States in 1926.She is best known for her novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, both of which developed a philosophical system she called Objectivism. Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected all forms of faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism. She also rejected all form of ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism. She was sharply critical of most other philosophers and philosophical traditions.
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3. Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepare to see them misunderstood. - H. L. Menken
Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken (1880 -1956) was an American journalist, essayist, editor, culture critic and English language scholar. He is regarded as one of the most influential American writers of the first half of the 20th century. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, and pseudo-experts. He was enthusiastic about scientific progress but skeptical about economic theories. He was critical of anti-intellectualism, bigotry, organized religion, Christian Fundamentalism, creationism and chiropractic medicine. He was also not a proponent of representative democracy which he believed enabled inferior men to dominate their superiors.
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4. Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires. - Lao-tzu
The name Lao Tzu means Old Master. No one knows his real name or the dates of his birth or death. However, scholars place his birth between 600 and 300 B.C.E. He is credited with the writing of the Tao-Te Ching (tao means the way of all life, te means the fit use of life by men, and ching means text). Lao Tzu wanted his philosophy to remain a natural way to live life with goodness, serenity and respect. He laid down no rigid code of behavior and believed a person’s conduct should be governed by instinct and conscience. In addition, Lao Tzu believed that human life, like everything else in the universe, is constantly influenced by outside forces. He believed “simplicity” to be the key to truth and freedom and encouraged his followers to observe and seek to understand the laws of nature, to develop intuition and build up personal power, and to use that power to lead life with love, and without force.
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5. For God hates utterly
The bray of bragging tongues. - Sophocles
Sophocles (c. 497/6 BC - 406/5 BC) is one of only three Ancient Greek playwrights whose plays have survived. According to the Suda, a 10th century encyclopedia, Sophocles wrote 123 plays during his lifetime, but only seven have survived. They are Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus. He competed in around 30 competitions, won about 24, and was never judged lower than second place. Sophocles influenced the development of the drama by more fully developing his characters, adding a third character to his works, and reducing the importance of the chorus in plot development.
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6. Little by little, one travels far. - J.R.R. Tolkein
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist and Oxford University professor. He was also appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 1972. He is best known as the author of the high fantasy works, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillio (which was published posthumously by his son.) These three works together form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, and invented languages about a fantasy world called Arda and Middle Earth which is within Arda. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the invented term, legendarium, to the most of these writings. In 2009, Forbes magazine maintained that Tolkien was the 5th top-earning dead celebrity.
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7. Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not. - Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Gail Winfrey (born:1954) is an American Talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her multi-award-winning talk show which was the highest-rated program of its type in television history. It was televised from 1986 until 2011. She has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century and the greatest African-American philanthropist in U.S. history. She was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother, experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, was raped at age nine, and became pregnant at 14.(Her son died in infancy.) She got a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally famous. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1985 film, The Color Purple,
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8. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. - Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost (1874 -1963) was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England (6 North-eastern U,S. States) in the early twentieth century. He used the settings to examine complex social and philosophical themes. One of the most popular and critically respected American poets of his generation, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime and received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. Among his most famous poems are Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, The Mending Wall, and The Road Not Taken from which the above quote is taken. The text of the poem, The Road Not Taken, appears at the end of this article.
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9. We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. - Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung (1875 -1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of analytical psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and symbolization. While he was a fully involved and practicing clinician, much of his life's work was spent exploring tangential areas, including Eastern and Western philosophy, astrology, sociology, literature, the arts and alchemy. Many psychological concepts were first proposed by Jung, including the archetype, the complex and the collective unconscious.
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10. I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong. -John Lennon
John Winston Lennon (1940 -1980) was an English musician and singer-songwriter. He a member of The Beatles, one of the most successful and critically acclaimed pop music groups in the history of recorded music. Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, his writing, his drawings, on film, and in interviews. He became a controversial figure because of his political, anti-war and religious views and also because of his peace activism His music reached iconic stature with such songs as Give Peace a Change and Imagine. After his marriage to Yoko Ono in 1969, he changed his name to John Ono Lennon. He was murdered in New York City three weeks after his final album was released. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him number eight, and in 2008, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all-time.
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The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost, 1920