Tag: history

May 2015

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt (Former First Lady of the US; 1884-1962).

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde (Irish Playwright, 1854-1900).

“Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy to finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one area where I truly belonged. Rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” – J.K Rowling (Author; 1965 – present).

“Taking risk is not about throwing caution to the wind, it’s about freeing the decisions you make from the fear of their outcomes” – Danny Boyle (Film director, October 1956-present)

“Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.” – Demosthenes (Greek orator and statesman, 384–322 BC)

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives or the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change”. –  Charles Darwin (English scientist; 1809 – 1882).

“People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don’t know when to quit. Most men succeed because they are determined to.” – George Allen (American football coach; April 1918 – December 1990).

“I learned that good judgment comes from experience and that experience grows out of mistakes.” – Omar Bradley (US Army general WWII; February 12, 1893 – April 8, 1981).

‘Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success’. – Henry Ford (Founder of the Ford Motor Company; 1863 – 1947)

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April 2015

“Temptations, unlike opportunities, will always give you many second chances.” – O.A. Battista (Canadian-American chemist and author; 1917 – October 1995)

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March 2015

“Life is an adventure in forgiveness.” – Norman Cousins (American political journalist; 1915–1990)

“The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.” Henri Nouwen (Dutch writer; 1935–1996).

“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”  Jonathan Safran Foer (American writer; February 1977 – present).

“The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.” – Marcus Aurelius (Roman emperor & Stoic philosopher; 121-180AD).

“Perfection is the enemy of greatness.” – Janelle Monáe (Singer, December 1985-present)

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” – Scott Adams (American Cartoonist; 1957–present).

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour.”  – Truman Capote (American author, 1924 – August 25, 1984).

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” – Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister during World War II; 1874 – 1965)

“Only through curiosity can we discover opportunities, and only by gambling can we take advantage of them.” – Clarence Birdseye (American entrepreneur and naturalist, 1886 –1956)

“Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier (American writer; 1885 –1950).

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October 2014

“Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.” – Barbara Jordan (Civil rights leader & first African-American elected to the Texas Senate; February 1936 – January 1996).

“You can’t hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree. You can’t hate Africa and not hate yourself.” – Malcolm X  (American civil rights activist; May 1925 – February 1965) 

“Without courage, you cannot practice any of the other virtues.” – Maya Angelou (American author and poet; 4th April 1928 – 28th May 2014).

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time” – Maya Angelou (American author and poet; 4th April 1928 – 28th May 2014) .

Interview with James Arthur Baldwin (American novelist; 1924 – 1987)

The Paris review, 1984: The Art of Fiction No. 78

Q: As your experience about writing accrues, what would you say increases with knowledge?

A: “You learn how little you know. It becomes much more difficult because the hardest thing in the world is simplicity”.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” – Frederick Douglass (American social reformer, orator and writer; 1818 -1895).

“I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition was improved, instead of increasing my contentment; it only increased my desire to be free, and set me thinking of plans to gain my freedom.” – Frederick Douglass (American social reformer, orator and writer; 1818 -1895)

“Tomorrow, our seeds will grow. All we need is dedication”. – Lauryn Hill (American singer/songwriter; May 26, 1975 – present)

“Travel is the only thing you buy, that makes you richer.” – Unknown

“The only limit is the one you put on yourself”– Unknown 

“With God your best moments will often follow the worst times.” – Word 4 Today publication 

“It’s always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela (The first black president of South Africa; July 1918- December 2013).

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (American civil rights activist; January 1929 – April 1968).

“It is easy to romanticize poverty, to see poor people as inherently lacking agency and will. It is easy to strip them of human dignity, to reduce them to objects of pity. This has never been clearer than in the view of Africa from the American media, in which we are shown poverty and conflicts without any context.” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigerian Author; September 1977 – present)