Inspirational Quotes
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Like so many women of her generation, Norma's prospects for higher formal education were limited. After High School, marriage and child rearing she found inspiration and motivation through the writings of the world’s great philosophers.
Among the numerous authors Norma read, the following quotes represented a guide for her life.
Her “bible” was Marcus Aurelius from his Meditations (167 C.E)
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His message was that one must focus only on what one can control, accept fate with a calm mind, and treat others with virtue and kindness.
"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string."
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"To believe your own thought, to think that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men — that is genius."
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"The easy thing in the world is to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
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"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall."
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"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Selected quotes from Self-Reliance (1841)
"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the future generations."
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George Bernard Shaw
from the preface to his 1903 play
Man and Superman
"And indeed it is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's parody, whereas death transforms life into a destiny: in a way death preserves life by giving it the absolute dimension. As [Mallarmé] wrote himself, eternity changes him at last. Death does away with time. There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning: devotion to individuals, to groups, or to causes, social, political, intellectual or creative work... One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, compassion."
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Simone de Beauvoir
from her 1970 work
The Coming of Age / La Vieillesse