“I would always rather be happy than dignified.”
– Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
– Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

“Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you’ve got to make yourself.”
– Alice Walker

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”
– Maya Angelou

 “You are your best thing.”
– Toni Morrison