Quoting the Quoter 1

It came into him life; it went out from him truth. It came to him short-lived actions; it went out from him immortal thoughts. It came to him business; it went from him poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is his quick thought. It can stand, and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires. Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which it is issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted in The Love Song, “Poet 6,” Peter Nivio Zarlenga.

When we build let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone, let it be such work as our descendents will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone upon stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, “See! This our fathers did for us.”
— John Ruskin, in Ibid., “Humanity 7.”

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children.
— Kahlil Gibran, in Ibid., “Humanity 8.”

Yesterday is but a dream. Tomorrow is only a vision. But today lived for truth makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well therefore to this day! Such is the salutation to the dawn.
— James W. Henderson translation from the Sanskrit, in Ibid., “Truth 5-6.”

Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to the expectations of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse. Say to them, “O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O friends, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth’s. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no laws less than the eternal law . . . I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Ibid., “Truth 7.”

Truth is truth whether uttered by the learned or the ignorant, by millions or by a solitary speaking in the midst of a desert.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, in Ibid., “Truth 8.”

Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.
— Leonardo da Vinci, in Ibid., “Truth 16.”

Whoever tells the truth is chased out of nine villages.
— Turkish Proverb, in Ibid., “Truth 16.”

I am only one, but still I am one; I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
— Edward E. Hale, in Ibid., “Action 6.”

For those who approve but do not carry out, who are stirred, but do not change, I can do nothing at all.
— Confucius, in Ibid., “Action 7.”

Tough decisions never get easier to make; indecision is the quickest killer of ideas — and man.
— Willi Unsoeld, in Ibid., “Action 8.”