“Do silly things. Foolishness is a great deal more vital and healthy than our straining and striving after a meaningful life.”

Anton Chekhov (1860 – 1904), born on this day

“You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”

From Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, published on this day in 1813

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF COMMEMORATION IN MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning

“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”

Bessie Coleman (1892 – 1926), first black woman to earn a pilot’s license, born on this day

“No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.”

Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941), born on this day

“We need to experience ourselves in such a way that we could say that our real body… is not just what’s inside the skin, but our whole total external environment… because if we don’t experience ourselves that way, we mistreat our environment, we treat it as an enemy… We exploit the world we live in. We don’t treat it with love and gentleness and respect… We need a new kind of consciousness, because you see underneath the superficial self… there is another self, more really us, than I, and if you become aware of that unknown self, the more you become aware of it, the more you realize that it is inseparably connected with everything else that there is. That you are a function of this total galaxy, bounded by the Milky Way… and that, furthermore, this galaxy is a function of all other galaxies and that vast thing that you see far off, far off, far off with telescopes and you look and look and look, one day you’re going to wake up and say, “why… that’s me!””

Alan Watts

“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.”

Lao-Tzu, 6th century BCE China, translated by Stephen Mitchell

“Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.”

Jonas Salk (1914 – 1995), medical researcher who developed the first safe polio vaccine

“Gary Paulsen’s memoir Winterdance describes a man running the Iditarod, the Alaskan dog team race, only to vanish. Everyone thought he’d fallen through a patch of sea ice and drowned, and Paulsen drilled himself in remembering details about the man to share with his bereaved friends and relations.

But the man survived. The ice on which he had been racing broke off from the mainland, a crag so huge that the man didn’t notice that he was lost for an entired day. He was rescued at last, but got no credit (or brass belt buckle) for finishing the race. But Paulsen says, “He didn’t care. He’d found god out there on the ice alone.”

Is the divine waiting outside for you, too? Religious seekers throughout history have undertaken pilgrimages in search of revelation. If you’re having trouble reaching your destination, consider that sometimes the best way to find it is to get lost.”

From Earth Bound: Daily Meditations for All Seasons by Brian Nelson

“Since we humans have the better brain, isn’t it our responsibility to protect our fellow creatures from, oddly enough, ourselves?

… Wildlife is something which man cannot construct. Once it is gone, it is gone forever. Man can rebuild a pyramid, but he can’t rebuild ecology, or a giraffe.”

Joy Adamson, naturalist (1910 – 1980), born on this day