Philosophical

What most of us recognized in South Africa, at the very last moment, was just how much we needed one another. We realized that violent confrontation promised only destruction and a long life of shared misery.

They discovered that being 'tough' was not so much about going to war, but about choosing to avoid it.

When we experience our fear, when we say the words 'I am scared,' we have the choice, the ability to acknowledge that being scared is not who we are. It is not our identity.

We live to commune. We live to create. Our enduring biological and spiritual drive is to create, to live in the act of becoming. It is not a choice. It is our experience of our existence.

You've got to want to do whatever you want to do more than you want to be whatever you want to be. Want to write more than you want to be a writer. Want to heal more than you want to be a doctor.

When you teach, you learn that you are the other. That the distance between us is not as great as we fear.

History tells us that modern science evolved from the visual arts. Observational science started with the visual arts. Galileo's first publication was not on a scientific matter. He wrote a monograph on perspective, on shadow and light.

He was committed to lifelong learning. He settled for nothing less than excellence. He not only sought truth — Galileo believed more than anything else that he would find it.

That's the power of truth and learning and excellence — the search for what it is that ignites the human spirit, overcoming the unexpected and discovering the unknown. That's what life is all about.

An individual was walking down the street and saw a gentleman chipping away on some stones. He said, 'What are you doing?' The gentleman grumbled, 'I'm building a stone wall.' He continued down the street and saw a second gentleman chipping stones. 'What are you doing?' This gentleman said, 'Well, I'm building a cathedral.'

The measure of success is what you think about what you've done. Not the doing well, nor the failure — but what you think about it.

There will be times when knowing things won't matter as much as how scary the situation is. When that happens, you'll have to decide whether or not to get into the wheelbarrow.