The right quotation can change your life. That compressed idea—expressed in just a few words, a sentence or two—can shift your thinking, trigger an epiphany, alter your way of seeing the world. The wisest, most experienced, and most thoughtful people in history have left us these little thought-bombs. And this book collects them: surprising, jolting, discomforting, and comforting insights into living a full, unbridled life, questioning authority and reality, relating to fellow humans, creating, risking, loving, living with uncertainty, and staying sane in an insane world. Poets, philosophers, scientists, musicians, artists, presidents, mystics, activists, academics, and others rub shoulders, giving us the benefit of their hard-earned wisdom, breakthroughs, breakdowns, bad choices, sudden illuminations, and lightning wit. Sharing some of life's most important lessons are William Blake and Bruce Lee, Abraham Lincoln and Lorrie Moore, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Terence McKenna, René Magritte and St. Teresa of Avila, Zelda Fitzgerald and James Baldwin, and hundreds more. Neatly arranged into topics we wonder about, Flash Wisdom's rousing insights and challenging thoughts will appeal to anyone who is searching, anyone who doesn't fit in, anyone who questions the way things are...which is to say, all of us