The quality of life is determined by its activities…

Aristotle

Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato’s teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle’s writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.

Aristotle’s views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian physics. In the zoological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only in the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotle’s philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described his literary style as “a river of gold”), it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have survived.

All of us are watchers – of television, of time clocks, of traffic on the freeway – but few are observers. Everyone is looking, not many are seeing….

Peter M. Leschak

If his writing is any clue, you would want Peter M. Leschak as your leader if you ever became courageous–or crazy–enough to fight forest fires for a living. The latest of his nine books, Ghosts of the Fireground: Echoes of the Great Peshtigo Fire and the Calling of a Wildland Firefighter, shows a writing style notable for its coherence, tautness and precision–just the kind of mind to get you out of a tight spot. It is, in fact, the kind of writing that has gotten Leschak’s thoughtful personal essays (which now number 270) into Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine and Outdoor Life. Leschak, 51, leads an unusual hybrid existence: He writes in the winters and then, as a seasonal employee of Minnesota’s Division of Forestry, fights fires in the summers (both locally and nationally). A former ministerial candidate, he lives with his wife, Pam, in a log cabin they built in Side Lake, Minn.

http://www.writermag.com/en/Articles/2003/03/Peter%20M%20Leschak.aspx

No masterpiece was ever created by a lazy artist. ..

Salvador Dali

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis of Dalí de Púbol (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989), commonly known as Salvador Dalí (Catalan pronunciation: [səɫβəˈðo dəˈɫi]), was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres.

Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. Dalí’s expansive artistic repertoire includes film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.

Dalí attributed his “love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes” to a self-styled “Arab lineage,” claiming that his ancestors were descended from the Moors.

Dalí was highly imaginative, and also had an affinity for partaking in unusual and grandiose behavior, in order to draw attention to himself. This sometimes irked those who loved his art as much as it annoyed his critics, since his eccentric manner sometimes drew more public attention than his artwork.

It is more important to listen to artists than to politicians. I think that art is really one of the revolutionary forces of the world…

Victor Pinchuk

Victor Pinchuk (Ukrainian: Віктор Михáйлович Пінчýк; born December 14, 1960) is a Ukrainian businessman and philanthropist. Forbes ranked him # 307 on the list of the wealthiest people in the world, with a fortune of $3.1 billion. Pinchuk is the founder and main owner of EastOne Group Ltd., an international investment advisory company based in London, and of Interpipe Group, one of Ukraine’s leading steel industry groups also working in other fields of economy. Pinchuk is the owner of four TV channels and a popular tabloid, Fakty i Kommentarii. He has been a member of the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, for two consecutive terms from 1998 to 2006. He is married to Elena Pinchuk, the daughter of former President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Pinchuk

If you want your life to be a magnificent story, then begin by realizing that you are the author and everyday you have the opportunity to write a new page. ..

Mark Houlahan

The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time…

David Bowie

David Bowie (pronounced /ˈboʊ.iː/ BOH-ee;[1] born David Robert Jones, 8 January 1947) is an English rock musician, and singer who has also worked as an actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for five decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s, and is known for his distinctive voice and the intellectual depth of his work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie

Give me a firm place to stand, and I will move the earth…

Archimedes

 Archimedes of Syracuse (Greek: Ἀρχιμήδης; c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an explanation of the principle of the lever. He is credited with designing innovative machines, including siege engines and the screw pump that bears his name. Modern experiments have tested claims that Archimedes designed machines capable of lifting attacking ships out of the water and setting ships on fire using an array of mirrors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes

A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting…Carlos Castaneda

Carlos Castaneda

Carlos (César Salvador Arana) Castaneda (anglicized from Castañeda; 25 December 1925 – 27 April 1998) was a Peruvian-born American anthropologist and author. Starting with The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968, Castaneda wrote a series of books that describe his alleged training in traditional Mesoamerican shamanism. His 12 books have sold more than 8 million copies in 17 languages. The books and Castaneda, who rarely spoke in public about his work, have been controversial for many years. Supporters claim the books are either true or at least valuable works of philosophy and descriptions of practices which enable an increased awareness. For several years, anthropologists considered his work authentic and important, but then a number of exposés questioned Castaneda’s veracity. Academic critics now claim the books are works of fiction, citing the books’ internal contradictions, discrepancies between the books and anthropological data, alternate sources for Castaneda’s detailed knowledge of shamanic practices, apparent sources of plagiarism, and lack of corroborating evidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda

The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have…

Ari Bernstein

Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it…

Irving Berlin

Probably the most famous and most important songwriter of the twentieth century, Irving Berlin was active in the music industry for almost sixty years. He wrote over a thousand songs, including some of the most famous and successful numbers of all-time, such as ”White Christmas” and ”God Bless America.”

http://www.parabrisas.com/d_berlini.php