Genius unexerted is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks.

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.

The Church is not a gallery for the exhibition of eminent Christians, but a school for the education of imperfect ones.

Some men are like pyramids, which are very broad where they touch the ground, but grow narrow as they reach the sky.

As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them, both for their own sake, and for the sake of old-fashioned folks, who used to love them.

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road.

The thistle is a prince. Let any man that has an eye for beauty take a view of the whole plant, and where will he see a more expressive grace and symmetry; and where is there a more kingly flower?

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.

He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.

Sufism is, in operation, pragmatic.

But even those five-and-forty minutes were too long, the bored me --and boredom is the coldest thing in the world.

New York critics - I hear when one of them watched "A Star Is Born", he talked back to the screen.

I'm a Capricorn, actually.

I'm not much interested in my own self when I write. I'm interested in what I observe out there, what's going on around me.

Speeches are for the younger men who are going places. And I'm not going anyplace except six feet under the floor of that little chapel adjoining the museum and library at Abilene.

I think that the farmer displaces the Indian even because he redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in some respects more natural.

If you have no agenda of your own, life will work according to its agenda. Your personal agenda is taking you further and further away from that.

He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.

I give you points for persistence, but you lose a few for being slow on the uptake. (Rae)