“Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness.”

George MacDonald (1824 – 1905), novelist, poet and Congregational minister

“To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‘Tis much better to do a little with certainty, and leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.”

Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727), born on this day

“I’ve learnt that no one is too small to make a difference…
The real power belongs to the people…
All we have to do is to wake up and change.”

Greta Thunberg, climate activist, born on this day in 2003

“You are waterproof. It is easier to learn to be soaked and happy than to learn how to stop the rain.”

Matt Haig

“What if one day
you come to the realization
that you never again have to explain
yourself away to anyone any more,
or that you no longer must carry
the burden of another’s false perception of you
or your own perceived inadequacies
and you could relax, finally,
in knowing you’re incredible
in the light you are standing in
at this moment.
And what if you go on to not care
about the judgments someone
else might have; that your life is
not full or amazing enough
or that
you no longer feel the need to endlessly
apologize for being human?
That day
has been graciously
waiting for you
to begin swimming in
its warm waters of love
and acceptance.”

Susan Frybort

“It has been one of the greatest and most difficult years of my life. I learned everything is temporary. Moments. Feelings. People. Flowers. I learned love is about giving- everything- and letting it hurt. I learned vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so very difficult to remain soft. I learned all things come in twos: life and death, pain and joy, sugar and salt, me and you. It is the balance of the universe. It has been the year of hurting so bad but living so good, making friends out of strangers, making strangers out of friends. We must learn to focus on warm energy, always. Soak our limbs in it and become better lovers to the world, for if we can’t learn to be kinder to each other how will we ever learn to be kinder to the most desperate parts of ourselves.”

Rupi Kaur

“Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it – that is your punishment, but if you never know, then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing – an actor, a writer – I am a person who does things – I write, I act – and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.”

Stephen Fry

Art by Banksy

“Speak well of those who speak evil of you. Pay good for evil. Pray for those who cause you various offences, wrongs, temptations, persecutions. Whatever you do, on no account condemn anyone; do not even try to judge whether a person is good or bad, but keep your eyes on that one person for whom you must give an account before God–yourself.”

St. Ignatius of Antioch

“Each step forwards to become the person we are makes it harder to go backwards, to return to the shadowy, private world of closed doors and shuttered windows. The experience, the awakening of one’s true self, after being so long suppressed, can never be adequately explained with language.”

Lili Elbe (born Einar Wegener), painter and recipient of first gender reassignment surgeries (1882 – 1931), born on this day

Image: Lili painted by her spouse Gerda Wegener

“It is enough, the now, and though it comes without anything, it gives me everything. With it I can repopulate the world. I can bring forth new worlds in underground shelters while the bombs are dropping above; I can do it in lifeboats as the ship goes down; I can do it in prisons without the guard’s permission; and O, when I do it quietly in the lobby while the conference is going on, a lot of states-men will emerge twirling their moustaches, and see the birth blood, and know they have been foiled.

Love is strong as death.”

Elizabeth Smart (1913 – 1986), Canadian writer, born on this day