Great grief makes sacred those upon whom its hand is laid. Joy may elevate, ambition glorify, but sorrow alone can consecrate.

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.

It is impossible to enslave, mentally or socially, a bible-reading people. The principles of the bible are the groundwork of human freedom.

Go West, young man, go West. There is health in the country, and room away from our crowds of idlers and imbeciles.

Common sense is very uncommon.

The darkest hour in any man's life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it.

We are not one people. We are two peoples. We are a people for Freedom and a people for Slavery. Between the two, conflict is inevitable.

I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample underfoot.

A cigar has "...a fire at one end and a fool at the other."

Ah! if the pulpit would practice what it preaches, then all would be well.

Journalism kills you, but it keeps you alive as long as you're doing it.

When you're going though a difficult time, forget about yourself for a while. Go do something for someone else. This is the fastest way to pull yourself out of a negative state.

There's a strange sort of quiet when you're dying. It's as if you're in a glass room, and the walls keep getting thicker and thicker.

I don't particularly like it when people put words in my mouth, either, by the way, unless I say it.

I began to see that my problems, seen spiritually, were really my soul's plusses.

Everyone knows what their roots are, but you've got to explore everywhere. You've got to explore the sky too.

Keep painting - day in - day out. Be absorbed by it.

Life is like cooking: before choosing what you love, try everything... ♥

I wore my same look for six years. My hat and glasses - people recognize me now.

I am thy father's spirit; Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night And, for the day, confin'd to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature, Are burnt and purg'd away.

The Sun will not rise or set without my notice and thanks.