Please feel free to add your contributions to these wise words by emailing our Publisher Paul Barnes at paul@pharmacynow.org.

Kilgore Trout once wrote a story which was
A dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were
Discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate
Sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of
Their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing
That they were making champagne.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Breakfast of Champions

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms-to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Viktor Frankl
Man’s Search for Meaning

Real courage is risking something you have to keep on living with, real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness. Real courage is risking one’s clichés.
Tom Robbins
Another Roadside Attraction

…he allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in the Time of Cholera

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you're a winner, when your number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you're not a winner.
Vince Lombardi
Coach, A Season with Lombardi

What is always needed in the appreciation of art, or life, is the larger perspective. Connections made, or at least attempted, where none existed before; the straining to encompass in one's glance the varied world, the common thread, the unifying theme through immense diversity, a fearlessness of growth, of searching, of looking, that enlarges the private and the public world.
Alice Walker
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens

A great way to gain insight into a person's strengths is to ask about their past successes. Ask what they have excelled at in the past. Find out what they enjoyed, and why they enjoyed it. Chances are great that what brought satisfaction and success in the past will to the same in the future.
JP Maroney
The Productivity Path

"Dare to be different. Be a pioneer. Be a leader. Be a kind of woman who in the face of adversity will continue to embrace life and walk fearlessly toward the challenge. Take it on! Be a truth seeker and rule your domain, whatever it is - your home, your office, your family- with a loving heart."
Oprah Winfrey
1993 Spelman College Commencement Address

"All women go through periods in their lives when numerous demands are placed on them-family, work, spouse, ex-spouse, children, stepchildren, parents. It is important, indeed necessary, to step back and reevaluate one's priorities, to reflect on one's mission in life. For it is only in nurturing one's soul that one can nurture, take care of another. Sometimes, one must say, "Stop! Listen to me. I have a story to tell."
Mary Michalica
Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass

This is the day of the instant genius. Everybody starts at the top, and then has the problem of staying there. Lasting accomplishment, however, is still achieved through a long, slow climb and self-discipline.
Helen Hayes
On Reflection, An Autobiography

Intelligence is not something possessed once for all. It is a constant process of forming, and its retention requires constant alertness in observing consequences, an open-minded will to learn and courage in re-adjustment.
John Dewey
Reconstruction in Philosophy

I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view she can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.
Lisa Alther
Kinflicks

I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it, and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: hard work-and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't.
Lucille Ball
in Eleanor Harris, The Real Story of Lucille Ball

If you do your best always, over and over again, you will become a master of transformation. Practice makes the master. By doing your best you become a master. Everything you have ever learned, you learned through repetition. Action is what makes the difference.
Don Miguel Ruiz
The Four Agreements

Simply smile. Smile to yourself. Look in the mirror and smile. Smile at someone. Just smile.
You have control over your own attitude. You may choose to be negative and look at the world around us through grungy, negative glasses, or you may opt to function with an attitude of relentless optimism. It is your choice.
Pauline Shirley
The Productivity Path

I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves in the mire and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amid the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail.
Charles Beard
On the Meaning of Life

Only an open mind still has room for knowledge. What is outgrown and used up must be discarded to make room for what is yet to be learned. It is why we say we need to get away - to escape from clutter and busyness - to hear ourselves think. Thoreau said, "A man who has to go to the village to get the news hasn't heard from himself in a long time."
Robert Fulghum
Words I Wish I Wrote