Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments.

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.

They beg you for transparency. Yet when you give them a peek behind the curtain shrouding your hear, they run in sheer fright.

As Spinoza or someone very much like him once said . . .

Our first goal is to stop the recession and start with recovery.

It's a big change for a country boy like me, to be in the limelight in New York City. It was most definitely a tough adjustment.

Ours is the age of substitutes: Instead of language we have jargon; instead of principles, slogans; and instead of genuine ideas, bright suggestions.

The moment one asks himself whether he is happy, he ceases to be so.

The life of Liverpool is commerce; it is a city of warehouses and shops.

I loved all books that I could read, and I never knew if I was ready for it until I tried to read it, so I tried to read everything.

Regret of neglected opportunity is the worst hell that a living soul can inhabit.