Quoting the Quoter 2

He who has painted a divine picture or written one true poem may enter unbidden the company of the immortal. They ask not how much he has done, but what height he has attained, though but for once and a little while.
— Spalding, quoted in The Love Song, “Beauty 11,” Peter Nivio Zarlenga.

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
— Wolfgang Göethe, in Ibid., “Love 14.”

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his own. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with more good-humored inflexibility than most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Ibid., “Vision 4.”

You must close the eyes and waken in yourself that other power of vision, the birthright of all, but which few turn to use.
— Plotinus, in Ibid., “Vision 13.”

A great faith animated me, and although I did not know that I should ever be able to test the truth of my idea, I gave up every other occupation to deepen and broaden its conception. It was almost as if I prepared myself for an unknown mission.
— Marie Montessori, in Ibid., “Vision 13.”

There is nothing on earth which is not in the heavens in a heavenly form, and nothing in the heavens which is not on the earth in an earthly form.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Ibid., “Hero 30.”

The only power is conscience in the service of Justice and the only Glory is Genius in the service of truth.
— Victor Hugo, in Ibid., “Power 7.”

Had I some difficult task before me which was exhausting, I would attack it again and again until it was done. So I practiced day to day from morning till night. At first, it called for a vigorous mental effort directed against my disposition and desire, but as years went by the conflict lessened and finally my will and wish became identical. They are so today, and in this lies the secret of whatever I have achieved.
— Nikola Tesla, in Ibid., “Will 11.”

There are three marks of a superior man: being virtuous, he is free from anxiety; being wise, he is free from perplexity; being brave, he is free from fear.
— Confucius, in Ibid., “Courage 7.”

If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it he is sinking downwards to be a devil. He cannot stop at the beast. The most savage of men are not beasts; they are worse, a great deal worse.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in Ibid., “Evil 4.”

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
— Blaise Pascal, in Ibid., “Evil 4.”

To how much lying, extravagance, hypocrisy and servility does not fear of ridicule lead? Human respect makes us cowards and slaves. It may deter from evil, but much oftener it drives to baseness. “We are too much afraid,” said Cato, “of death, exile and poverty.”
— Spalding, in Ibid., “Fear 20.”