"Love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way... and if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet."
-Bertrand Russell, BBC Interview on Face to Face (1959)

"You're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry."
-J.D. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye

"No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength. Learning for instance, to eat when he's hungry and sleep when he's sleepy."
-Jack Kerouac

"When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling."
-Ernest Hemingway: "Across the River and into the Trees"

“There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard...
There are not more than five primary colors, yet in combination
they produce more hues than can ever been seen...
There are not more than five cardinal tastes, yet combinations of
them yield more flavors than can ever be tasted.”
-Sun Tzu: "The Art of War"