It is one of the worst effects of prosperity to make a man a vortex instead of a fountain; so that, instead of throwing out, he learns only to draw in.

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.

Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form.

If ever there was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptown-on-the-Hudson called New York.

God, for example, appealed to me as a beardless man wearing a quilted silk cap; holiness was something burning, forbidding, something connected with fire while a day had the form of an oblong box.

Learn to accept your limits and you'll become a happier person.

You do not have to seek God's will when you are doing God's will.

Most of us are shrinking in the face of psycho-social and physical poisons, of the toxins of our world. But compassion, the generation of compassion, actually mobilizes our immunity.

So I wonder if anything should ever be off limits.

Women gain social influence through their roles as mothers, transmitters of culture, and parents for the next generation.

I never liked Queen. I can honestly say I hated Queen and everything that they did.