'It's those who lie outside ordinary experience who have the most to teach us.'

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

- Albert Einstein

'Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.'

- Author Philip Roth (1933-2018)

'In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success—if you are willing to learn from it.'

- Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen (1953–2018)

'I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.'

- Author Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

'Everybody has talent and it's just a matter of moving around until you've discovered what it is. A talent is a combination of something you love a great deal and something you can lose yourself in.'

- George Lucas (1944-present)

'Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.'

- Pablo Picasso

'And I knew that it was better to live out one's absurdity than to die for that of others.'

-Ralph Ellison, from "Invisible Man" (1913-1994)

'The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.'

- American musician BB King (1925-2015)

'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)

'Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be … when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am.'

-Author Arthur Miller (1915-2005) in "Death of a Salesman"

'Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a persons own mind—than on the externals in the world.'

- George Washington (1732-1799)

'There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things.'

-Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)

'Because of phones, we always have the ability to jump out of ourselves. But unless you learn how to be in your head, you’ll never learn how to create.'

- Songwriter and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda (1980-present)

'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"

'Mediocrity is always invisible until passion shows up and exposes it'

- Graham Cooke

'All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.'

- "The Lord of the Rings" author JRR Tolkien (1892-1973)

The best predictor of success.

Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn’t the only thing separating successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of “grit."

'The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.'

-Writer J.D. Salinger (1919-2010)

'It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.'

- Legendary boxer Muhammad Ali (1942–2016)

'Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.'

- US President James Madison (1751-1836)

Plato's famous allegory of the cave is a metaphor exploring the value of truth over ignorance.

'We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.'

- Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury

'Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.'

- Author James Baldwin (1924–1987)

'Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.'

- Bobby Kennedy

'(Kids) don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.'

- "Muppets" creator Jim Henson (1936-1990)

Writer Christopher Hitchens on why Orwell matters

In this 2008 segment with NPR, the author of "Why Orwell Matters" discusses his admiration for the author and fields questions from callers. Hitchens notes that anyone can write about tyranny, but that Orwell's brilliance is in exploring why people "are so keen to obey."

'If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.'

- Billionaire John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937)

Hear Ray Dalio's principles for navigating a changing world order

Dalio argues that there aren't new events in history, per se, and that people are taken by surprise by events because they just haven't happened in their lifetimes—not because they are actually novel.

'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)

'The consumer isn't a moron, she's your wife' is among David Ogilvy's most memorable pieces of advertising advice.

Albert Camus' 'The Fall' encourages readers to live without illusions

The writer's final complete novel is a series of dramatic monologues from Jean-Baptiste Clamence, who tries to explain to a stranger the sound of laughter that began following him. As the "Philosophize This!" podcast argues, the book is Camus' attempt at wrestling with some of the thornier aspects of existentialism in a form that's more digestible than a dense philosophical tome.

A quote by Alex Haley

"Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you."

'Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.'

- Inventor Thomas Edison (1847 - 1931)

'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'

- Playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

The case for optimism

Author, editor, and thinker Kevin Kelly makes an argument for optimism. Not only as a personal philosophy, but as a moral obligation, focusing on the need for optimism in overcoming challenges. Drawing examples ranging back to the Wright brothers,...

Joan Didion's 1975 commencement speech at UCR encouraged graduates to think outside of themselves

Filled with many widely circulated quotes, the talk addresses people's tendency to focus only on their personal ideologies and perceptions of the world. Didion advocates for being an active participant in the world, rather than existing only in our own bubbles.

Stephen King doesn't believe writing can be taught

But he does believe it can be learned. He argues that the best writers are "voracious readers" who start their careers by copying the style of the masters before developing their own.