A Statement from Thomas Alva Edison

 

A Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote.

 

No bom sentido, é claro.

The World as I see it–An Essay by Einstein

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...

"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."

"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

These 9 Famous Writers Can Teach You More About Love Than Any Hallmark Card Ever Could

 

The commercialized Valentine's Day presents a neatly Photoshopped image of modern romance that sets an impossible standard for even the most loving couple. Hallmark greeting cards sing trite stanzas about soul mates and eternal love. Meanwhile, all of the commercials for chocolate, perfume and creepily gargantuan teddy bears somehow seem to be conspiring to undermine our own awkward fumbling love lives.

However, we contend that these famous writers' musings on romance will make even greatest cynic appreciate the complexities, the sorrows and, ultimately, the incomparable joys of love:

1. Love isn't easy, but it can be transformative.

"Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby: awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess."

― Written by Lemony Snicket in his novel, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid.

2. You have more love to give than you could ever know.

"Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold."

― Written by Zelda Fitzgerald in her novel, Save Me The Waltz. She is shown above with her husband, the acclaimed author F. Scott Fitzgerald.

3. Some passions may be impossible to resist.

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

― Written by Oscar Wilde in his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

4. Love is the greatest gift and the greatest sacrifice.

"In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave,
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet, it is only love
which sets us free."

― Written by Maya Angelou in her poem, Touched By An Angel.

5. Finding love takes luck.

"I wish I had more friends, but people are such jerks. If you can just get most people to leave you alone, you're doing good. If you can find even one person you really like, you're lucky. And if that person can also stand you, you're really lucky."

― Written by Bill Watterson , author and artist of Calvin & Hobbes.

6. When real love hits, it shouldn't make you feel weak.

"Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.”

― Written by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morison in her novel, Jazz.

7. When you love somebody, their goofiest quirks become their most endearing.

“It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.”

― Written by author Agatha Christie in her book, An Autobiography.

8. Love is more meaningful than almost anything else.

"It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you."

― Written by Roald Dahl in his children's book, The Witches.

9. Be grateful for all the love you find, be it platonic or romantic, lifelong or merely temporary. That love is ultimately what gives your life value.

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”

― Written by author Kurt Vonnegut in his novel, The Sirens of Titan.

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Even if your disgust with Valentine's Day has reached its seasonal peak and the mere sight of Sweetheart candies make you nauseated, it's hard to feel quite as cynical after reading these masters of language describe what is truly the most remarkable human emotion.

Remembering some of the Rolls-Royce history