Let the GRATEFUL HEART sweep through the day that it may recognize in every hour some sweet blessing.

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.

Live life with a purpose and live it full out.

Black people are victims of an enormous amount of violence. None of those things can take place without the complicity of the people who run the schools and the city.

My Love wakes in a puddle of sunlight.Her hands asleep beside her.Her hair draped on the lawnlike a mantle of cloth.I give her my troth, for our love is wholeI sing her beauty in my soul

I don't think there's anything Craig Ferguson could say that would make me laugh. Ad-libbing is not the same as entertainment.

With migration [in Europe] you look at the lines and you look at the tremendous amount of young strong men in these lines and you wonder what is going on?

An abstainer is the sort of man you wouldn't want to drink with even if he did.

After 30 years in Brussels, I can tell you: The relationship between the Commission and the Parliament has probably never been as good as it is now.

I'm not funny. People assume that because my books are funny, I'll be funny in real life. It's the inevitable disappointment of meeting me.

We now have in our hands—really, in our libraries—the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years.

He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child.