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Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light.

Frida Kahlo

It is the fate of many famous women to be known primarily for the tragedies in their lives, rather than for their lightness. Artist Frida Kahlo is often thought of in the context of her lifelong health travails and her torrid, sometimes violent romance with another larger-than-life Mexican painter, Diego Rivera. But, fiercely optimistic, Kahlo surrounded herself with beauty and brilliance — not only in the art for which she is so well known, but also in life. She had numerous friends and lovers. She painted her home a bright cobalt blue and called it Casa Azul. (Poet Carlos Pellicer said “the house … seems to lodge a bit of heaven.”) And she was deeply committed to social justice. “I must fight with all my strength so that the little positive things that my health allows me to do might be pointed toward helping the revolution,” she said. That was, for her, “the only real reason for living.”

If your heart’s attached to it, then your mind will be attached to it.

Vera Wang

The connection between our emotions and our thoughts can be powerful. Our minds naturally gravitate toward what our hearts hold dear, and in this quote, fashion designer Vera Wang suggests that our emotional investment in something can greatly influence our practical thoughts and decisions. These words don’t just remind us of the beauty of openness and vulnerability; they also encourage us to be mindful of where we focus our internal energies, as they can shape our perceptions and actions. What we choose to focus on is what will grow.

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.

Franz Kafka

A German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer of Jewish descent, Franz Kafka often used his writing to explore themes such as alienation, isolation, and the struggle for identity in a world that can be confusing and oppressive. This quote is pulled from a letter Kafka wrote in 1904, expressing his own struggles with writing and sharing his belief that literature should have a transformative impact on its readers.

Now and then there comes a crash of thunder in a storm, and we look up with amazement when [God] sets the heavens on a blaze with his lightning.
~C. H. Spurgeon (1834–1892)

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

Albert Einstein

Born in Germany in 1879, physicist Albert Einstein was a curious, independent thinker from an early age. He worked as a clerk in a Swiss patent office as a young man while developing his groundbreaking theories regarding energy, space, time, and gravity. He excelled in visualizing his ideas and creating new explanations for stubborn scientific mysteries, often going against popular opinion and academic tradition. Instead, he applied his imaginative and analytical powers to many complex topics, including time travel, black holes, and atomic energy. Einstein’s studies earned him a Nobel Prize for physics in 1921, and his work continues to demonstrate the enormous potential of an inquisitive and flexible mind.

You don't always have to be doing something. You can just be, and that's plenty.

Alice Walker

Since writing her first poetry book in 1968, Alice Walker has gone on to publish more than 30 literary works, including her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Color Purple," and has spent decades advocating for women’s rights and civil rights. But through all this activity she maintains a sense of stillness, of just being. This quote is a welcome invitation to slow down and take in the simple joys of living — or, as Walker put it, to feel connected to and loved by the universe.

Let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.

Carl Sagan

Few scientists of the past half-century are as popular as Carl Sagan. As an astronomer and planetary scientist, he’s perhaps best known for his research on extraterrestrial life. He also penned a number of popular science books, such as 1994’s “Pale Blue Dot”; co-wrote and narrated the hit television series “Cosmos”; and wrote the 1985 sci-fi novel “Contact.” Sagan was a passionate advocate of skeptical inquiry and the scientific method, but argued that critical thinking must go hand-in-hand with kindness. While we may strongly disagree with people who do not share our beliefs, we must not fall into the trap of self-righteousness, because none of us is perfect, and “none of us comes fully equipped.”

What good is warmth without cold to give it sweetness?

John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, where he spent the summers of his youth working on nearby ranches — the setting for much of his literary work, including "Of Mice and Men" and "East of Eden." His experiences gave him insights into the lives of the downtrodden, who often served as the protagonists in his novels. These struggles, not to mention living through the Great Depression, gave Steinbeck a greater appreciation for the good times he enjoyed. Steinbeck followed up the quote above with, "You only truly, deeply appreciate and are grateful for something when you compare and contrast it to something worse."

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

Seneca

The Roman philosopher Seneca grew up during the first century CE in a high-born patrician family in ancient Rome. This granted him an education in philosophy and rhetoric. His oratory skills earned him a seat in the Senate and a role as Emperor Nero's adviser. Seneca's intellectual prowess formed from great practice and effort, which led him to elegantly point out that just as physical muscles grow under strain and stress, our “mental muscle” strengthens with challenges. If you want your mind to grow, give it plenty of opportunities for exercise.

There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

Leonard Cohen

Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen was a master of finding the light within darkness — a skill aptly demonstrated in “Anthem,” the fifth track on his 1992 record “The Future.” Cohen’s ninth studio album was born amid global tragedy and unrest, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and the 1992 riots in Cohen’s home city of Los Angeles. In a rare statement discussing the meaning of his now-iconic lyrics, Cohen emphasized the inescapable reality of imperfection. “There is a crack in everything that you can put together,” he explained. “Physical objects, mental objects, constructions of any kind. But that’s where the light gets in. It is with the confrontation, with the brokenness of things.” Cohen’s words are a gentle yet firm reminder that perfection is a fallacy at best, and those cracks — emotional, physical, or mental — are inevitable opportunities for evolution, not signs of failure.