If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

– Henry David Thoreau

Theodore Roosevelt on character and steadfast resolution

The boy who is going to make a great man, or is going to count in any way in after life, must…

Boys eating sugarcane in a small fishing village of Puerto Real

Boys eating sugarcane in the small fishing village of Puerto Real, Puerto Rico.

New York, Long Island, and the Coast of Connecticut in the days of the Revolution

Long Island towns on the map include Port Washington, Hempstead, Amityville, Oyster Bay, Islip, Huntington, Port Jefferson, Setauket, Sayville, Patchogue, Moriches, Manorville, Rocky Point, Riverhead, Sag Harbor, East & South Hampton, Greenport, and more.

The Power of The Optimist

Optimist after optimist, in the lists of time, does the impossible, they tame it, unmask it…

How a 14th Century Warlord Gained Courage from an Ant

Timur, the last great nomadic conqueror of the Eurasian Steppe, was a warlord who envisioned the restoration of Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire. Timur’s army was feared throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe, but his extraordinary perseverance, displayed during fifty years of continuous battles, was imparted by an ant.

Beautiful bird’s eye view of San Diego, California from 1876

This old map shows San Diego, California in the late 19th century.

Historic old map of North Brookfield, Mass from 1878

Historic bird’s eye view of North Brookfield, Massachusetts in the late 19th century.