Quotations

"God creates each soul differently, so that when all the mud is finally cleared away, His light will shine through it in a beautiful, colorful, totally new pattern."

— M. Scott Peck, American psychiatrist, born 1936

"Nirvana or lasting enlightenment or true spiritual growth can be achieved only through persistent exercise of real love."

— M. Scott Peck, American psychiatrist, born 1936

"We do not have to love. We choose to love."

— M. Scott Peck, American psychiatrist, born 1936

"Death is not the greatest fear. Neither is loss. Living is."

— Joel B. Peckham, Jr., American poet

"Stop worrying about missed opportunities and start looking for new ones."

— I. M. Pei, Chinese-American architect, born 1917

"The brain has not explained the mind fully."

— Wilder Penfield, American-Canadian neurosurgeon, born 1891

"Among the millions of nerve cells that clothe parts of the brain there runs a thread. It is the thread of time, the thread that has run through each succeeding wakeful hour of the individual."

— Wilder Penfield, American-Canadian neurosurgeon, born 1891

"Although the content of consciousness depends in large measure on neuronal activity, awareness itself does not. To me, it seems more and more reasonable to suggest that the mind may be a distinct and different essence."

— Wilder Penfield, American-Canadian neurosurgeon, born 1891

"I share with many people the feeling that there is a sweetness and constancy to light that falls into a studio from the north sky that sets it beyond any other illumination. It is a light of such penetrating clarity that even a simple object lying by chance in such a light takes on an inner glow, almost a voluptuousness."

— Irving Penn, American photographer, born 1917

"I can get obsessed by anything if I look at it long enough. That's the curse of being a photographer."

— Irving Penn, American photographer, born 1917

"I myself have always stood in the awe of the camera. I recognize it for the instrument it is, part Stradivarius, part scalpel."

— Irving Penn, American photographer, born 1917

"We've let the blade of our innocence dull over time, and it's only in innocence that you find any kind of magic, any kind of courage."

— Sean Penn, American actor, born 1960

"I can always see light in any situation. It's just the way I'm made."

— Sean Penn, American actor, born 1960

"Gould revealed us a thing that had not been perceived by anybody else in the Bach’s compositions, and simultaneously he taught us that the role of the executor was not to serve but to provoke the art and thus to reveal not only the most beautiful but also the most difficult to bear."

— Murray Perahia, American pianist, born 1947