I was feeling a bit foolish and alone today. I went to the post office to mail a letter and this made me smile!

“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

About Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a powerful political figure in her own right, crusading tirelessly for humanist causes. She was born in New York in 1884 and was orphaned young. After Franklin was struck by polio, she acted as his eyes and ears. She was central to the creation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which she considered her crowning achievement, and wrote numerous essays, including a long-running column called “My Day.” She died in 1962.

“Courage is very important. Like a muscle, it is strengthened by use.”
– Ruth Gordon

About Ruth Gordon

American actress Ruth Gordon is best known for her roles in Harold and Maude and Rosemary’s Baby. She was born in Massachusetts in 1896. At age 19, she moved to New York to pursue acting; she performed in plays for the next 20 years. She and her first husband, Garson Kanin, wrote five film scripts for Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, including Adam’s Rib, which was based on the writers’ own marriage. She died in 1985.

“Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ‘I’m with you kid. Let’s go.'”
– Maya Angelou

About Maya Angelou

American poet and author Maya Angelou is best known for her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She was born in St. Louis in 1928 and grew up in rural Arkansas. Due to her activism, Martin Luther King asked her to take a leadership position in his organization. In 1993, at President Clinton’s request, she wrote and performed a poem at his inauguration. She has also directed films and appeared on television. She teaches at Wake Forest University.

After giving up my metal workshop I found a new way to be creative! I love painting with light!

“If one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better.”
– Jane Austen

About Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775-1817), the British writer whose sparkling, socially incisive novels remain extremely popular two centuries after her death, is best known for Pride and Prejudice, which she called her “own darling child.” She started writing solely for her own family, and her novels, including Sense and Sensibility and Emma, were initially published anonymously (or “By a Lady”). Nevertheless, she won fame later in life, and she earned the high honor of burial in Winchester Cathedral after her death in 1817 at age 41.

“The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.”
– George Eliot

“Trust your hunches. They’re usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level.”
– Dr. Joyce Brothers

About Dr. Joyce Brothers

The popular American psychologist and advice columnist Joyce Brothers first found fame by winning The $64,000 Question game show. She was born on October 20, 1927. Her influence, through a daily newspaper column, radio and TV shows, and more than ten best-selling self-help books, has made her one of the ten most admired women in America, according to a number of polls. After her husband died in 1989, she wrote her most personal book, Widowed, delving into her own grief. She lives in New York City.

“Far away in the sunshine are my highest inspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead.”
– Louisa May Alcott

About Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott, the beloved American author, is best known for her semiautobiographical novel, Little Women, which was made into a movie five different times. Born on November 29, 1832 near Philadelphia, she grew up in Massachusetts. Her family lived in the genteel poverty depicted in her fiction. She wrote lurid stories anonymously to bring in money but gained fame under her own name with young adult novels, which held readers with their warm characterizations and simple, engaging style. She died on March 6, 1888.

“Once the ‘what’ is decided, the ‘how’ always follows. We must not make the ‘how’ an excuse for not facing and accepting the ‘what.'”
– Pearl S. Buck

About Pearl S. Buck

Prolific American author Pearl S. Buck is best known for her 1931 novel, The Good Earth, which depicted peasant life in China; the book, published by the John Day Company, won the Pulitzer Prize. She was born in West Virginia on June 26, 1892, but her missionary parents raised her in China. She and her first husband lived in China until 1934, when they had to flee the political strife. She later divorced and married John Day’s publisher, Richard Walsh, in 1935. In 1938, she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature. By the time of her death in 1973, she had published over 70 books, including collections of stories, poetry, and children’s literature.

“Choices are the hinges of destiny.”
– Pythagoras

About Pythagoras

Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras, called the Father of Numbers, is best known for developing the Pythagorean Theorem. He was born on the Greek island of Samos in 570 BC and moved to Italy, where he founded a religious school preaching vegetarianism and reincarnation. He believed that everything could be explained by mathematics and measured in rhythmic cycles. He wrote nothing down; some theories ascribed to Pythagoras may have been discovered by his followers. He died around 495 BC.