However divided we may feel within ourselves, it is the sum total of our warring fractions that make us who we are — fragmentary but indivisible. - Maria Popova

Those accustomed to hard work and self-propulsion, who have risen to the zenith of accomplishment by force of will and magnitude of effort, are most susceptible to the supreme self-damnation of human life — the belief that love is something to be earned by striving rather than something that comes unbidden like a shepherd's song on a summer evening in the mountains of Bulgaria.

Medals are small things in the light of the stars,” she would later write. “There’s only one thing in the world of any real importance, and that is goodness.

We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven’t become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a very tiny part of a vast and incredible universe….We’re challenged, as mankind has never been challenged before, to prove our maturity and our mastery — not of nature, but of ourselves.