Thought for the Day

“Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds
on the heel that has crushed it.”

~ Mark Twain


*Samuel Langhorne Clemens

Born November 30, 1835 Florida, Missouri
Died April 21, 1910 (aged 74) Redding, Connecticut

Well known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), which has been called “the Great American Novel”, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). He is extensively quoted. Twain was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.

Thought for the Day

“Control your own destiny
or someone else will.”

~ Jack Welch


*John Francis “Jack” Welch, Jr.

Born: November 19, 1935 Peabody, Massachusetts

An American businessman and author. He was Chairman and CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001.

Welch joined General Electric in 1960. He worked as a junior engineer in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, at a salary of $10,500 annually. While at GE, he blew off the roof of the factory, and was almost fired for doing so.

Thought for the Day

“If you can get people to believe
that they are doing God’s will,
you can get them to do anything.”

~ Judith Freeman


*Judith Freeman

Born: October 1, 1946 Ogden, UT

An American novelist, essayist, critic, and short story writer. She is a self-taught writer who learned her craft from attentively reading the works of recognized masters such as D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather. Judith lives in Los Angeles and Idaho with her husband, artist-photographer Anthony Hernandez.

Thought for the Day

“The first human being who hurled an insult
instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.”

~ Sigmund Frued


*Sigismund Schlomo Freud

Born: 6 May 1856 P?íbor, Moravia, Austrian Empire (now the Czech Republic)
Died: 23 September 1939 (aged 83) London, England, UK

A Jewish Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychiatry. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression, and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient, technically referred to as an “analysand”, and a psychoanalyst.

Thought for the Day

“Most people are as happy
as they make up their minds to be.”

~ Abraham Lincoln


*Abraham Lincoln

Born: February 12, 1809 Hardin County, Kentucky
Died: April 15, 1865 (aged 56) Washington, D.C.

The 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery.

He introduced measures that resulted in the abolition of slavery, issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoting the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Six days after the large-scale surrender of Confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee, Lincoln became the first American president to be assassinated.

Thought for the Day

“Why should I fear death?
If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not.
Why should I fear that which can only exist
when I do not?”

~ Epicurus


*Epicurus

Born: 341 BCE
Died: 270 BCE

an ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus’s 300 written works. Much of what is known about Epicurean philosophy derives from later followers and commentators.

For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia, peace and freedom from fear, and aponia, the absence of pain, and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and evil, that death is the end of the body and the soul and should therefore not be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, that the universe is infinite and eternal, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.

Thought for the Day

“The greatest quest in life
is to reach one’s potential.”

~ Mychal Wynn

Submitted by Gourisankar Achari


*Mychal Wynn

Born:1955 Pike County, Alabama

An American Educator, Consultant/Author, Entrepreneur and Motivational Speaker. Born in Pike County, Alabama during the year of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. At just six months of age he was given up for adoption and raised in the segregated Black ghetto of Chicago’s
south side.

Over the past two decades, Mr. Wynn, together with his wife, has built a successful publishing company, achieved international acclaim for his 17 published books, trained over 100,000 teachers, inspired over 500,000 parents and students and raised two children.

Thought for the Day

“To understand another human being
you must gain some insight into the conditions
which made him what he is.”

~ Margaret Bourke-White


*Margaret Bourke-White

Born: June 14, 1904 the Bronx, New York
Died: August 27, 1971 Stamford, Connecticut

An American photographer and documentary photographer. She is most famously known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take picture of Soviet Industry, the first female war correspondent (and related, the first female permitted to work in combat zones) and the first female photographer for Henry Luce’s Life magazine, where her photographs graced the first Life cover. She died of Parkinson’s Disease approximately eighteen years after she developed her first symptoms.

Thought for the Day 23/08/10

“Vision is not enough,
it must be combined with venture.
It is not enough to stare up the steps,
we must step up the stairs.”

~ Václav Havel


*Václav Havel

Born: 5 October 1936 Prague, Czechoslovakia

A Czech playwright, essayist, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally. He has received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, and the Ambassador of Conscience Award. He was also voted 4th in Prospect Magazine’s 2005 global poll of the world’s top 100 intellectuals. He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.

Thought for the Day

“Faith is the bird that sings
when the dawn is still dark.”

~ Rabindranath Tagore


*Rabindranath Tagore

Born: 7 May 1861 Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India
Died: 7 August 1941 (aged 80) Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India

An Indian Bengali polymath. He came from a wealthy family of intellects and creative people. He was a popular poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright who reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Tagore was perhaps the most widely regarded Indian literary figure of all time. He was a mesmerizing representative of the Indian culture whose influence and popularity internationally perhaps could only be compared to that of Gandhi, whom Tagore named ‘Mahatma’ out of his deep admiration for him.

Thought for the Day 21/08/10

“Music is moonlight
in the gloomy night of life.”

~ Jean Paul



*Johann Paul Friedrich Richter

Born: 21 March 1763 Wunsiedel, Germany
Died: 14 November 1825 (aged 62) Bayreuth, Germany

A German Romantic writer, best known for his humorous novels and stories.

Jean Paul began his career as a man of letters with Grönländische Prozesse (“Greenland Lawsuits”, published anonymously in Berlin) and Auswahl aus des Teufels Papieren (“Selections from the Devil’s Papers”, signed J. P. F. Hasus), the former of which was issued in 1783-84, the latter in 1789. His next book, Die unsichtbare Loge (“The Invisible Lodge”), a romance published in 1793 under the pen-name Jean Paul (in honour of Jean Jacques Rousseau), had all the qualities that were soon to make him famous, and its power was immediately recognized by some of the best critics of the day.

Thought for the Day 20/08/10

“Even when we know what is right,
too often we fail to act.”

~ Bernard M. Baruch


*Bernard Mannes Baruch

Born: August 19, 1870 Camden, South Carolina
Died: June 20, 1965 (aged 94) New York City, New York

an American financier, stock-market speculator, statesman, and political consultant. After his success in business, he devoted his time toward advising U.S. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt on economic matters.

Baruch was instrumental in starting the Council on Foreign Relations along with the Rockefellers, Morgans, and Warburgs. Before World War I, it was said that “Barney” Baruch was worth a million dollars or more. After World War I was over, it was alleged that he was worth about two hundred million dollars, a suitable figure for a Titan.

Thought for the Day

“If you would behold the spirit of death,
open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one,
even as the river and sea are one.”

~ Kahlil Gibran


*Gibr?n Khal?l Gibr?n bin Mikh?’?l bin Sa’ad

Born: January 6, 1883 Bsharri, Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, Ottoman Syria
Died: April 10, 1931 (aged 48) New York City, United States

A Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer. Born in the town of Bsharri in modern-day Lebanon (then part of the Ottoman Mount Lebanon mutasarrifate), as a young man he emigrated with his family to the United States where he studied art and began his literary career. He is chiefly known for his 1923 book The Prophet, a series of philosophical essays written in English prose. An early example of Inspirational fiction, the book sold well despite a cool critical reception, and became extremely popular in the 1960s counterculture. Gibran is considered to be the third most widely read poet in history, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu.

Thought for the Day

“The only thing to do with good advice
is pass it on.
It is never any use to oneself.”

~ Oscar Wilde


*Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde

Born: 16 October 1854 Dublin, Ireland
Died: 30 November 1900 (aged 46) Paris, France

An Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete. His parents were successful Dublin intellectuals, and from an early age he was tutored at home, where he showed his intelligence, becoming fluent in French and German. He attended boarding school for six years, then matriculated to university at seventeen years of age. Reading Greats, Wilde proved himself to be an outstanding classicist, first at Trinity College, Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. His intellectual horizons were broad and he became deeply interested in the rising philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors Walter Pater and John Ruskin, at the same time profoundly exploring Roman Catholicism.

Thought for the Day

“God made so many different kinds of people.
Why would he allow only one way to serve him?”

~ Martin Buber


*Martin Buber

Born February 8, 1878 Vienna, Austria
Died June 13, 1965 (aged 87) Jerusalem, Israel

an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship.

In 1930 Buber became an honorary professor at the University of Frankfurt am Main, and resigned in protest from his professorship immediately after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. He then founded the Central Office for Jewish Adult Education, which became an increasingly important body as the German government forbade Jews to attend public education.

Thought for the Day 14/08/10

“Share our similarities
celebrate our differences.”

~ M. Scott Peck


*M. Scott Peck

Born May 23, 1936 New York City
Died September 25, 2005 (aged 69) New Milford, Connecticut

An American psychiatrist and best-selling author, best known for his first book, The Road Less Traveled, published in 1978. Peck’s works combined his experiences from his private psychiatric practice with a distinctly religious point of view. While Peck’s writings emphasized the virtues of a disciplined life and delayed gratification, his personal life was far more turbulent. For example, in the book In Search of Stones, Peck acknowledged having extramarital affairs and being estranged from two of his children.

Thought for the Day

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in trying
to adapt the world to himself.”

~ George Bernard Shaw



*George Bernard Shaw

Born: 26 July 1856(1856-07-26) Dublin, Ireland
Died: 2 November 1950 (aged 94) Hertfordshire, England

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his writings deal sternly with prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy to make their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care and class privilege.

Thought for the Day

“No one on his deathbed ever said,
“I wish I had spent more time on my business.”

~ Paul E. Tsongas


*Paul Efthemios Tsongas

Born: February 14, 1941(1941-02-14) Lowell, Massachusetts
Died: January 18, 1997 (aged 55) Lowell, Massachusetts

A United States Senator from Massachusetts and a one-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Previously, he also served as a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts and held local political office as well.

He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia in 1962–1964, and as Peace Corps Country Director in the West Indies in 1967–1968.

Thought for the Day

“Friendship is the only cement
that will hold the world together.”

~ Woodrow Wilson



*Thomas Woodrow Wilson

Born: December 28, 1856 Staunton, Virginia
Died: February 3, 1924 (aged 67) Washington, D.C.

The 28th President of the United States. A leader of the Progressive Era, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. With Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft dividing the Republican Party vote, Wilson was elected President as a Democrat in 1912.

Thought for the Day

“The surest way to corrupt a young man
is to teach him to esteem more highly
those who think alike than
those who think differently.”

~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche


*Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Born October 15, 1844 Röcken bei Lützen, Prussia
Died August 25, 1900 (aged 55) Weimar, Saxony, German Empire

A 19th-century German philosopher and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism.

Nietzsche’s influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism and postmodernism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth have resulted in much commentary and interpretation, mostly in the continental tradition. His key ideas include the death of God, perspectivism, the Übermensch, the eternal recurrence, and the will to power.

Thought for the Day 09/08/10

“When you move beyond your fear,
You feel free.”

~ Spencer Johnson
Who Moved My Cheese


*Spencer Johnson
Born January 1, 1940 Mitchell, South Dakota

Spencer Johnson, M.D., is one of the world’s most beloved authors and respected thinkers. His books have helped tens of millions of people enjoy more happiness and success with less stress, at work and in life.

Dr. Johnson is often referred to as “the best there is at taking complex subjects and presenting simple solutions that work.”

Thought for the Day 08/08/10

“Dreams are illustrations from the book
your soul is writing about you.”

~ Marsha Norman


*Marsha Norman
21 September 1947 Louisville, Kentucky, USA

An American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. She received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play ‘night, Mother. She wrote the book and lyrics for such Broadway musicals as The Secret Garden, for which she won a Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical, and The Red Shoes, as well as the libretto for the musical The Color Purple.

Thought for the Day

“Language… has created the word “loneliness”
to express the pain of being alone.
And it has created the word “solitude”
to express the glory of being alone.”

~ Paul Tillich


*Paul Johannes Tillich

Born August 20, 1886 Starzeddel, Brandenburg, Germany
Died October 22, 1965 New Harmony, Indiana.

A German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was, along with his contemporaries Rudolf Bultmann (Germany), Karl Barth (Switzerland), and Reinhold Niebuhr (United States), one of the four most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century. Among the general populace, he is best known for his works The Courage to Be (1952) and Dynamics of Faith (1957), which introduced issues of theology and modern culture to a general readership.

Thought for the Day

“Keep climbing. If you can’t fly, run.
If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl.
But by all means, keep moving!”

~ Martin Luther King Jr.



*Martin Luther King Jr.

Born January 15, 1929 Atlanta, Georgia
Died April 4, 1968 (aged 39) Memphis, Tennessee

An American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African American civil rights movement. His main legacy is securing progress on civil rights in the United States. Because of this work, he has become a human rights icon.

In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent means

Thought for the Day

“Death makes angels of us all
and gives us wings
where we had shoulders
smooth as raven’s claws.”

~ Jim Morrison


*James Douglas “Jim” Morrison

Born December 8, 1943 Melbourne, Florida
Died July 3, 1971 (aged 27) Paris, France

an American singer, songwriter, poet, writer and filmmaker. He was best known as the lead singer and lyricist of The Doors and is widely considered to be one of the most charismatic frontmen in rock music history. He was also the author of several books of poetry and the director of a documentary and short film. Although Morrison was known for his baritone vocals, many fans, scholars, and journalists have discussed his theatrical stage persona, his self-destructiveness, and his work as a poet. He was ranked number 47 on Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”.

Thought for the Day

“There is only one thing
that makes a dream impossible to achieve:
the fear of failure.”

~ Paulo Coelho


*Paulo Coelho

Born August 24, 1947 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

A Brazilian lyricist and novelist. As a teenager, Coelho wanted to become a writer. Upon telling his mother this, she responded with “My dear, your father is an Engineer. He’s a logical, reasonable man with a very clear vision of the world. Do you actually know what it means to be a writer?” After researching, Coelho concluded that a writer “always wears glasses and never combs his hair” and has a “duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation,” amongst other things.

Thought for the Day

“Ideals are not something I can control.
It’s not logic that convinces me of something,
it’s what my heart says.”

~ Michelle Shocked


*Michelle Karen Johnston

Born February of 1962 Dallas, Texas
An American singer songwriter regarded as a pioneer in the alternative music field. Shocked has continued to follow a path less traveled, preferring an independent life of small venues and benefit concerts over the more fickle world of labels and contracts.

Thought for the Day

“The quality of a leader is reflected
in the standards they set for themselves.”

~ Ray Kroc


*Raymond “Ray” Albert Kroc

Born October 5, 1902 Oak Park, Chicago, Illinois
Died January 14, 1984 (aged 81) San Diego, California

a Czech American businessman who took over the small-scale McDonald’s Corporation franchise in 1954 and built it into the most successful fast food operation in the world. Kroc was included in Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century, and amassed a $500 million fortune during his lifetime. He was also the owner of the San Diego Padres baseball team starting in 1974.

Thought for the Day

“I never knew how to worship
until I knew how to love.”

~ Henry Ward Beecher


*Henry Ward Beecher

Born June 24, 1813 Litchfield, Connecticut, U.S.
Died March 8, 1887 (aged 73) Brooklyn, New York

a prominent, Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, abolitionist, and speaker in the mid to late 19th century. An 1875 adultery trial in which he was accused of having an affair with a married woman was one of the most notorious American trials of the 19th century.[