“Effort ceases. Time flaps on the mast. There we stop; there we stand. Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame”

“Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own… Whether it our own meaningless self we are upholding, or some doctrine devoid of evidence, we can do it only in a frenzy of faith.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

“We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity.”

Angela Carter book Nights at the Circus

“When we are in partnership and have stopped clutching each other's throats, when we have stopped enslaving each other, we will stand together, hands clasped, and be friends. We will be comrades, we will be brothers, and we will begin the march to the grandest civilization the human race has ever known.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

“We loosely talk of Self-realization, for lack of a better term. But how can one realize or make real that which alone is real? All we need to do is to give up our habit of regarding as real that which is unreal. All religious practices are meant solely to help us do this. When we stop regarding the unreal as real, then Reality alone will remain, and we will be That.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

“We stand by the window embracing, and people look up from the street:
it is time they knew!
It is time the stone made an effort to flower,
time unrest had a beating heart.
It is time it were time.It is time.”

Paul Celan (1920–1970) Romanian poet and translator

“How shall I a habit break?
As you did that habit make.
As you gathered, you must lose;
As you yielded, now refuse.
Thread by thread the strands we twist
Till they bind us, neck and wrist.
Thread by thread the patient hand
Must untwine, ere free we stand.
As we builded, stone by stoene,
We must toil, unhelped, alone,
Till the wall is overthrown.”

John Boyle O'Reilly (1844–1890) Irish-born poet and novelist

“Such is human psychology that if we don't express our joy, we soon cease to feel it. ”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

“Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the 'environmentalist' view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view.”

Edward O. Wilson (1929) American biologist

“All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort - a sustained effort - to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America