It is because of pain that you value pleasure, sorrow that you value joy, despair that you value hope, war that you value peace, and hate that you value love.

A genuine smile is one of the world’s rarest treasures.

A fish that is afraid of drowning in a river is ignorant of its gifts.

A diamond earns its sparkle from the pressure it endures.

It is in the storm, not the calm, that a rainbow is born.

A determined seed cannot be hidden from the world, not even by dirt.

Calm skies don't make skillful eagles.

If you cry in the rain, only the sky will see your tears.

Birds keep singing beautiful songs, even if they have no audience.

Today's storms help you appreciate tomorrow’s sunshine.

Train the ears to hear more, the eyes to see more, the hands to do more, the feet to accomplish more, the mind to think more, the heart to feel more, and the soul to love more.

Never doubt God in the darkness what he has given us in the light.

Excellence is inconveniently difficult.

The reason I never give up hope is because everything is so basically hopeless.

Governments are not representative. They have their own power, serving segments of the population that are dominant and rich.

I've always wanted to make a bluegrass album.

All objects whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, are mere appearances to the mind just like things experienced in a dream

I am finding it very hard to get my novel started. I suffer from stylistic abscesses; and sentences keep itching without coming to a head.

tragedy in the theater opens our eyes so that we can discover and appreciate the heroic in reality.

Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.

Let true Christians then, with becoming earnestness, strive in all things to recommend their profession, and to put to silence the vain scoffs of ignorant objectors.