A quote by Florence Nightingale

A quote by Lauren Bacall

"Imagination is the highest kite one can fly."

'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.'

- Albert Einstein

A quote by Whitney Houston

"I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside."

'Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul—and sings the tunes without the words—and never stops at all.'

- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

'I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.'

- Modern nursing innovator Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)

'If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.'

- Marine biologist and author Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

'Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.'

- Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)

'Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.'

- Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) in "Elenora"

'In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.'

-Poet Robert Frost (1874-1963)

'I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.'

- Actress and singer Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992)

'I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning ... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.'

- Miles Davis (1926-1991)

'I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.'

- American novelist Eudora Welty (1909-2001)

'Love planted a rose, and the world turned sweet.'

-Author and poet Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929)

A quote by scientist Nikola Tesla

"The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result ... His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way."

Picasso was also a poet

In addition to his painting, Picasso wrote poetry, including several works that were published by his friend André Breton, founder of the surrealist movement, who described reading the poems as “being in the presence of an intimate journal, both of the feelings and of the senses, such as has never been kept before.”

'The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first, Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop'd.'

- Poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

'If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.'

- Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

'For it would seem—her case proved it—that we write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver.'

- Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) in "Orlando: A Biography"

'The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity. It's our attempt to influence things, the universe internal to ourselves and external to us.'

- Mae Jemison (1956-present), the first Black woman in space

Maya Angelou's 1993 recitation of 'On the Pulse of Morning' at President Bill Clinton's inauguration was a historic event

After Robert Frost in 1961, Angelou became the second poet in history to read a poem at a presidential inauguration. She was also the first African American and woman. The poem includes themes of change, inclusion, and the responsibility of both the President and citizens to create success in a country.

Romanticism was an 18th and 19th century creative movement

The movement emphasized the beauty of nature and human feeling. It was inspired by reactions against classical traditions, social injustices, technological change, and the philosophy of the Enlightenment. Although the movement spanned literature, visual art, music, poetry, and architecture, some of its most recognizable works are paintings.

Florence as it was: a digital reconstruction of a medieval city

Florence, Italy, is widely considered the birthplace of the Renaissance in Europe, where artists, poets, architects, and entrepreneurs renewed interest in ancient cultural forms. Using data from primary works, researchers have created a digital reconstruction of the city where users can explore buildings, artworks, and more.

Nobel Prize winner William Butler Yeats was fascinated by magic and the occult

The Irish poet and 1923 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature laid out his beliefs in a 1901 essay, entitled "Magic," and was a member of several organizations dedicated to occult and mystical practices.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

'Romeo and Juliet' was based on a preexisting narrative poem

Arthur Brooke's "The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet" was first published in 1562 and shares many details with Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." Shakespeare wasn't alone in his borrowing; Brooke's poem was based on other earlier Italian stories. None of this writing was considered fan fiction—copyright law didn't exist, and stories were regularly cribbed from preexisting sources.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

Researchers believe the brain consolidates memories, processes emotions, and plans for the future during dream states

The concept of phantom limbs, the perception that amputated limbs are still present, dates back to a French military surgeon in the 16th century.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Poison ivy was sent to Europe in the 1600s as an exotic, ornamental oddity, where it was purposefully grown in the English royal gardens at Kew, the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and a few other locations.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

Explore the animals that populate the depths of the ocean, from fish and coral in the first few hundred feet, all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.