“In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

“No policeman had ever arrested anyone for over-reading; but ignorance prosecutes those who under-read. You begin to stop growing on the day you stop learning, so why not keep learning and keep growing!”

“A role model is a person whose roles can be modelled. If the roles you conceive and give birth to today cannot be adopted by anyone in your absence, you are no good model.”

“The foundation of self-confidence, the basis of boldness and self-assertion, is a deep inner trust, based on living a life of perfect integrity, and disciplining yourself to live consistent with your highest values in every situation.”

“A conviction akin to religious feeling of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a high order.”

“Orang takkan pernah terlalu sibuk untuk memahami asalnya. --Nenek”

“We were created to live a life of prayer.”

“We go through life discovering the truth about who we are and determining who has earned the right to share the space within our heart. And now I simply want to share what I've been given. I want to continue to encourage as many people as I can to open their hearts to life, because if I know anything for sure, it's that opening my heart is what has brought memory greatest success and joy.”

“If you are ignorant of God’s Word, you will always be ignorant of God’s will.”

“They ought to find out how to vaccinate for love, like smallpox.”

“If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.”

“A right delayed is a right denied.”

“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.”

“We’re not completely happy here because we’re not supposed to be! Earth is not our final home; we were created for something much better.”

“But truth is hard as adamant and tender as a blossom.”