Theme

Beginnings

First sentences, new years, and the decision to start. Including the honest kind of beginning: the one that admits it does not know how the story goes.

1. That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.Neil ArmstrongWords spoken on the Moon
2. The die is cast.Julius CaesarSuetonius, Life of Julius Caesar
3. Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.Benjamin FranklinPoor Richard’s Almanack
4. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.Robert FrostThe Road Not Taken
5. If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?HillelPirkei Avot
6. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.John F. KennedyAddress at Rice University
7. The journey of a thousand li commences with a single step.LaoziTao Te Ching
8. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.Ursula K. Le GuinSpeech at the National Book Awards
9. I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper.Mary ShelleyFrankenstein
10. Call me Ishmael.Herman MelvilleMoby-Dick
11. I am still learning.MichelangeloAttributed in old age
12. If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.Toni MorrisonA remark to students, repeated in talks from the early 1980s
13. You must change your life.Rainer Maria RilkeArchaic Torso of Apollo
14. If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?Percy Bysshe ShelleyOde to the West Wind
15. I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.Henry David ThoreauWalden
16. The Child is father of the Man.William WordsworthMy Heart Leaps Up

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