Most of us

"We all have to rise in the end, not just one or two who were smart enough, had will enough for their own salvation, but all the halt, the maimed and the blind of us which is most of us."

Maureen Duffy, poet, playwright, and novelist (b. 1933)

Under the wind

"We saw men haying far off in the meadow, their heads waving like the grass which they cut. In the distance the wind seemed to bend all alike."

Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Unquestioning

"The sick do not ask if the hand that smooths their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin."

Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

The hills yonder

"I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could."

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

Walks of Life

"The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life -- the sick, the needy and the handicapped."

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, US Vice President (1911-1978)

Hngng tgthr

"You know what getting married is? It's agreeing to taking this person who right now is at the top of his form, full of hopes and ideas, feeling good, looking good, wildly interested in you because you're the same way, and sticking by him while he slowly disintegrates. And he does the same for you. You're his responsibility now and he's yours. If no one else will take care of him, you will. If everyone else rejects you, he won't. What do you think love is? Going to bed all the time?"

Jane Smiley, novelist (b.1949)

Wrong kind of feeling

"The worst kind of people are those who confuse kindness for weakness."

Werner Makowski, banker (b. 1929)

Construction

"Death destroys the body, as the scaffolding is destroyed after the building is up and finished. And he whose building is up rejoices at the destruction of the scaffolding and of the body."

Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)

Deep bright

"Where the light is brightest, the shadows are deepest."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

Poor on the moor

"I think that to get under the surface and really appreciate the beauty of a country, one has to go there poor."

Grace Moore, actress and singer (1898-1947)