This will be a collection without order, made up of many sheets which I have copied here, hoping afterwards to arrange them in order in their proper places according to the subjects of which they treat.

• Leonardo da Vinci

This above all—ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write?

Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple, “I must,” then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

~ Franz Kafka

Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.

~Terry Pratchett

Sometimes, rarely, in the forest of human creations, a bit of nature shoots not just above the clouds, but out beyond the moon

Hank Green

source: this video

Happiness is based on what is happening AROUND us. Joy is based on what is happening WITHIN us.

~ Margaret Minnicks

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea.

Let the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone.

This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.

~ Swami Vivekananda