I meditate on the austere grandeur of the mountains, their deadly slopes, severe crags, cold summits, and merciless ice.  Through them I gain a greater appreciation of nature’s safer beauties— gentle fields beneath a golden sun, warm rivers wending lazily through shady trees, little square flower gardens in a quiet courtyard…

Albert Einstein:

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.

“I will prepare and some day my chance will come.” – Abraham Lincoln

Carry your notes with you-

Lincoln was famous for his large top hat, perched on top of his towering 6′ 4″ frame. His top hat was also famous for another thing: keeping notes inside of it. Lincoln was constantly scribbling notes to himself and stowing the notes in his top hat, so as not to forget his thoughts.

Tolkien regarded the invention of constructed worlds (which he called “sub-creation”, in imitation of God’s creation of the universe) as a near-religious act, part of the process he referred to as mythopoeia.