As a people, I am afraid, we tend too often to brush aside with impatience, sometimes with discourtesy, customs and points of view which are alien to… - Eleanor Roosevelt

We cannot shut the windows and pull down the shades; we cannot say, “I have learned all I need to know; my opinions are fixed on everything. I refuse to change or to consider these new things.” Not today. Not any more.

It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.

Obviously, it requires effort to use all your potentialities to the best of your ability, to stretch your horizon, to grasp every opportunity as it comes, but it is certainly more interesting than holding off timidly, afraid to take a chance, afraid to fail.