"Many pains are imaginary, but all joys are real." ~ Mason Cooley

"The greatest gift is a portion of thyself!" ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power, whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and outer forces or moves them; this is of the essence of leadership." ~ Theodore H. White

“Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.”
~ Maya Angelou

"Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight, but while their companions slept, they were toiling upward in the night." ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow