"It’s a very difficult principle to grasp, this idea that actually, what I don’t know matters enormously, and what I can’t see matters enormously."

~ Daniel Kahneman

"There’s a tendency for us to think that to be a prophet or to do anything grand, you have to have a special gift, be someone called for. And I think ultimately what really matters is the resolve — to want to do it, to give your life to that which you consider important."

~ Enrique Martínez Celaya

"What we’ve been doing for thousands of years is just trying to piece by piece get some understanding of where we came from, where the universe came from, and where it’s all going. So, to me, that is not distinct from what the poet does or what the philosopher does or what the great writer does or the composer does. They just do it in a different language."

~ Brian Greene

"What is home?"

~ Pádraig Ó Tuama

"After you read a poem just knowing you can hold it, you can be in that space of the poem. And it can hold you in its space."

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

"I do know enough as a psychologist about learning and memory. And I know that we learn. How much of this I need to do in order to change, I cannot say. But I can say that there is a point at which this brain is not just elastic in moving to what is being suggested, but that it may be plastic in that it can be reset into a new mold."

~ Mahzarin Banaji

"I began to realize that the only place where things were actually real was at this frontier between what you think is you and what you think is not you." 

~ David Whyte

"I believe that it’s really interesting and really fun and really informative, and the right thing to do to be able to look at things in different ways, and appreciate there are different ways of looking at things that each have their own validity."

~ Frank Wilczek 

"Just this physical body right here, the energy in it, is equivalent to 30 hydrogen bombs I have right now. And that’s my only guarantee. I don’t know about tomorrow, but I have right now, and I’ve got this power. What am I going to do with it?"

~ Craig Minowa

"Half of what’s about to occur is unknown, both inside you and outside you."

~ David Whyte

"As conscious human beings, we know we die, and we therefore know our clock ends on, some level. So time just seems foundational. And I think a lot of the gymnastics that we do as human beings has to do with our relationship to the clock, or lack of a relationship to the clock. We squander time until it’s too late, et cetera. I love looking at the building blocks, the raw material, the irreducibles."

~ B.J. Miller

"When you penetrate a mystery, it doesn’t become less mysterious. It becomes, if anything, more mysterious."

~ Stephen Batchelor

Homemaking is creating an environment in which learning is possible.

~ Mary Catherine Bateson

"This is something you do find in Quaker meetings, actually, and in Buddhist meetings as well. The whole herd, and that may be 50 animals, will suddenly be still, completely still. And it's not just a stillness of voice, it's a stillness of body."

~ Katy Payne

"Since suffering as well as joy comes with being human, I urge you to remember this: Violence is what happens when we don’t know what else to do with our suffering."

~ Parker Palmer 

"It just makes me wonder what was happening in our minds, or inwardly then, or even in terms of our relationship to the world we were standing in that is completely gone now."

~ Krista Tippett

We would be better off if we made peace with insecurity. We’re all vulnerable. It’s all illusion.

~ Simone Cambpell

"The true material of knowledge is meaning. And the meaningful is the opposite of the trivial. And the only thing that we should have gleaned by skimming and skipping forward is really trivia."

~ Maria Popova

"Healing comes in many guises. We're healed by just the touch of a friend. We're healed by the hug of a child. And healing does not imply that your life is suddenly going to lose all of the struggle, all of the challenge. What it does instead is it strengthens us for what is next. But to be open to healing means to be vulnerable. And I think if you look at me, you know I'm what they would call a vulnerable adult. The cat doesn't even listen to me here. I have no real sense of control anymore."

~ Bruce Kramer