A poet soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him.

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

As good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.

Freely we serve,
Because we freely love, as in our will
To love or not; in this we stand or fall.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience, above all liberties.

– John Milton (Born December 9, 1608)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Milton

One single war — we all know — may be productive of more evil, immediate and subsequent, than hundreds of years of the unchecked action of the mutual-aid principle may be productive of good.

All belongs to all. All things are for all men … All is for all!

A different conception of society, very different from that which now prevails, is in process of formation. … Acknowledging, as a fact, the equal rights of all its members to the treasures accumulated in the past … it seeks to establish a certain harmonious compatibility in its midst — not by subjecting all its members to an authority that is fictitiously supposed to represent society, not by trying to establish uniformity, but by urging all men to develop free initiative, free action, free association.

Man is appealed to to be guided in his acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at the best tribal, but by the perception of his oneness with each human being. In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support not mutual struggle — has had the leading part.

We take men for what they are worth — and that is why we hate the government of man by man, and that we work with all our might — perhaps not strong enough — to put an end to it.

– Peter Kropotkin (Born December 9, 1842)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things.
– Grace Hopper

Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it, they are wrong. I do not say give them up, for they may be all you have, but conceal them like a vice lest they spoil the lives of better and simpler people.
– Robert Louis Stevenson

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/December#9

Change is inevitable, growth optional. Choose Wisel
– Cory Booker

Grant that we may not so much seek to be understood as to understand.
– Saint Francis of Assisi

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
– Joseph Campbell

The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence
– Norman Vincent Peale

Love helps break down barriers.
– Cornel West

Peace is liberty in tranquility.
– Cicero

The most compassionate form of giving is done with no thought or expectation of reward, and grounded in genuine concern for others.

I look at people from a positive angle, seeking positive aspects. This immediately creates a feeling of affinity, a kind of connectedness.

When we ignore the question of the impact our actions have on others’ well-being, inevitably we end up hurting them.

By studying others’ viewpoints, it is possible for us to discover new and refreshing perspectives on the world – including our own life.

I think that ethical behavior is another feature of the kind of inner discipline that leads to a happier existence.
– Dalai Lama