“Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate.”

“Man reaches the highest point of his knowledge about God when he knows that he knows him not, inasmuch as he knows that that which is God transcends whatsoever he conceives of him.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

“The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature;...”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

“Mankind is composed of two sorts of men — those who love and create, and those who hate and destroy.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

“I love him who seeks to create over and beyond himself and thus perishes.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“Love always creates, it never destroys. In this lies man's only promise.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

“Man is made or unmade by himself. By the right choice he ascends. As a being of power, intelligence, and love, and the lord of his own thoughts, he holds the key to every situation…”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

“The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment. The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

“Yet man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, and that is half the battle.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

“Man loves liberty, even if he does not know that he loves it. He is driven by it and flees from where it does not exist.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader