Lights Along the Road

Fifty-seven lights from the early 1900s, and their echoes around the world, for the road of an ordinary day.

Rilke on loving the questions. Machado on the road that is made by walking. Lu Xun on hope. Gibran on work as love made visible. Kaneko Misuzu on being different and good. Tagore on keeping faith in people. In the first half of the twentieth century, a time of new machines, great wars and many fresh starts, people in every part of the world thought hard about how to live, and many of their answers still shine.

The chapters follow the order of time, from 1900 to 1944. Each one gives the saying and where it was written, tells the life behind it and asks what it means for an ordinary day. Then it places two echoes beside it — words from ancient teachers in East Asia, South Asia, Africa and Europe, or traditional sayings passed on by many generations — and ends with one small thing to try today.

Every saying comes from a person who died long ago and is given with its source and year. Popular sayings that famous people never said are left out, and where the well-known form of a quotation differs from the real words, the book tells the real story. A warm and hopeful book for anyone, at any age.

After reading this book, you will be able to…

• Know fifty-seven sayings on how to live, with who said them, when and why
• See how people in very different places and times reached the same hopeful ideas
• Tell a real quotation from a famous saying with no known source
• Turn a saying into one small, concrete step in your own day
• Choose words to carry with you through hard times and good ones