• Columnists

Sonya Gavankar, Image Expert

Sonya Gavankar is an award winning television personality who can be seen hosting programs on PBS, BGTV, and MHz Networks. Her career has spanned diverse programs from international food shows to hard news.

She serves as the face of the Newseum by hosting live interview programs, appearing in video installations, video blogs and game shows. She brings a cohesive voice to the Newseum’s 250,000 square feet of exhibit and interactive programming.

In her free time Ms Gavankar goes behind the camera. Her photography has been shown in several Washington area galleries and she is a casting director for independent films.

In 2013, she joined the Inkandescent team as the supervising producer for the growing TV shows on InkandescentTV.com.

Learn more about Sonya at sonyagavankar.com.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

– Charles Darwin

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.”

– Bruce Lee

Passion makes perfect.”

– Eugene Biro

I’m not afraid of storms,
for I’m learning to sail my ship.”

– Louisa May Alcott

‎Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”

– Booker T. Washington

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

By your stumbling the world is perfected.”

– Sri Aurobindo

‎No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.”

– Charles Dickens

Do not say, ‘why were the former days better than these,’ for it is not from wisdom that you ask this.”

– Ecclesiastes, 7:10

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

– Albert Einstein

Do not be afraid of mistakes, providing you do not make the same one twice.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves. We must learn to respect them. We must learn to listen.”

– Sarah Ban Breathnach

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

– Anais Nin

A people who mean to be their Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

– James Madison

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

– Robert Frost

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”

– Marcel Proust

When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”

– Audre Lorde

I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”

– Thomas Edison

Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.”

– Corita Kent

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. 
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.”

– Mary Jean Irion

Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.”

– Lord Chesterfield

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leon Joseph Suenens

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.”

– Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., U.S. Supreme Court justice

Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.”

– Benjamin Disraeli

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

The goal of Life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature.”

– Joseph Cambell

The gem cannot be polished without friction; nor man perfected without trials.”

– Chinese proverb

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”

– Bob Dylan

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”

– Henry David Thoreau

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

– Charles R. Swindoll

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.”

– Joseph Addison

The best reason to start an organization is to create a product or service to make the world a better place.”

– Guy Kawasaki

To follow, without halt, one aim: There’s the secret of success.”

– Anna Pavlova

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

– Winston Churchill

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.”

– Steve Jobs

Education is an admirable thing to have, but it is well to remember that nothing worth knowing can be taught.”

– Oscar Wilde

Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.”

– Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn. If you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.”

– Steve Jobs

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

– Henry David Thoreau

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.

The quality of your life is directly related to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with.”

– Tony Robbins

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.”

– Jalaluddin Rumi

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.”

– Ray Bradbury

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.”

– Woodrow Wilson