“He was the most relentlessly curious man in history. Everything he saw made him ask how and why. Why does one find sea-shells in the mountains? How do they build locks in Flanders?…Find out; write it down; if you can see it, draw it.”

- British art historian Kenneth Clark (1903 - 1983), referring to Italian artist, engineer, and inventor Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

"He who really wants to get to know something new (be it a person, an event, a book) does well to entertain it with all possible love and to avert his eyes quickly from everything in it he finds inimical, repellent, false, indeed to banish it from mind: so that, for example, he allows the author of a book the longest start and then, like one watching a race, desires with beating heart that he may reach his goal. For with this procedure one penetrates to the heart of the new thing, to the point that actually moves it: and precisely this is what is meant by getting to know it. If one has gone this far, reason can afterwards make its reservations; that over-estimation, that temporary suspension of the critical pendulum, was only an artifice for luring forth the soul of the thing."

- German philologist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900)

“The basic nature of the human being, when functioning freely is constructive and trustworthy. For me this is an inescapable conclusion from a quarter-century of psychotherapy . . . We do not need to ask who will socialise him, for one of his own deepest needs is for affiliation and communication with others. As he becomes more fully himself, he will become realistically socialised. We do not need to ask who will control his aggressive impulses; for as he becomes more open to all of his impulses, his needs to be liked by others and his tendency to give affection will be as strong as his impulses to strike out or to seize for himself. He will be aggressive in situations in which aggression is realistically appropriate, but there will be no runaway need for aggression . . The only control of impulses which would exist, or which would prove necessary, is the natural and internal balancing of one need against another, and the discovery of behaviours which follow the vector most closely approximating the satisfaction of all his needs.”

- American psychologist Carl Rogers (1902 - 87)

“Nothing learned from a book is worth anything less unless it is used and verified in LIFE; and only then does it begin to affect behaviour and desire. It is LIFE that educates; and perhaps love more than anything else in LIFE.”

- American philosopher and historian Will Durant (1885 - 1981)

“What work I have done, I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn’t have done it. Who was it who said, ‘Blessed is the man who has found his work’? Whoever it was, he had the right idea in his mind. Mark you, he says his work – not somebody else’s work. The work that is really a man’s own work is play and not work and cannot lose it. When we talk about great workers of the world we really mean the great players of the world. The fellows who groan and sweat under the weary load of toil that they bear never can hope to do anything great. How can they when souls are in a ferment of revolt against the employment of their hands and brains? The product of slavery, intellectual or physical, can never be great”.

- American writer and humourist Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910) writing under the pseudonym Mark Twain

“Engage yourself spiritedly in creative pursuits.
Never lose your sense of the wonder in life.
Try everyday to overcome your boredom
Through worthwhile goals.
Have faith in your powers.
Understand that life can be fun.
Select goals that are realistic for you, then
move out to reach them.
Investigate your real worth so that you can
feel good about yourself.
Accept your shortcomings so that you can
feel good even when you fall.
See yourself at your best every day.
Move out in the world with excitement
and curiosity so that each day is a big day for you.”

- American neuro-surgeon Maxwell Maltz (1899 - 1975)

“Capacity for nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences but by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupation to which the position of life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown them, are not favourable to keeping that higher capacity in exercise. Men loose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasure because they are the only ones they have access, or only ones they are any longer capable of enjoying.”

- British philosopher-economist John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)

“Look to your health: and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy.”

- English writer Izaak Walton (1593 - 1683)

“Although styles of leadership change with the times, one constant remains: people are always ambivalent about those in power. They want to be led but also to feel free; they want to be protected and enjoy prosperity without making sacrifices; they both worship the king and want to kill him. When you are the leader of a group, people are continually prepared to turn on you the moment you seem weak or experience a setback. Do not succumb to the prejudices of the times, imagining that what you need to do to gain their loyalty is to seem to be their equal or their friend; people will doubt your strength, become suspicious of your motives, and respond with hidden contempt. Authority is the delicate art of creating the appearance of power, legitimacy, and fairness while getting people to identify with you as a leader who is in their service. If you want to lead, you must master this art from early on in your life. Once you have gained people’s trust, they will stand by you as their leader, no matter the bad circumstances.”

- Prominent 21^st Century author Robert Greene