The essential tendency of life is toward happiness . . . . Optimism is the only true condition for a reasonable man.

Be patient and understanding. Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious.

Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.

Pray the largest prayers. You cannot think a prayer so large that God, in answering it, will not wish you had made it larger. Pray not for crutches but for wings.

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie! Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.

I do not pray for a lighter load, but for a stronger back.

Jesus Christ, the condescension of divinity, and the exaltation of humanity.

Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.

Charity should begin at home, but should not stay there.

The ideal life is in our blood and never will be still.

O, do not pray for easy lives.

Isn’t that the way God works? She’d thought. He takes the things in our lives that are ugly, disgusting, and downright wicked, and transforms them into something magnificent.

Nothin' wrong with havin' a cat in the house. They can see what most people can't, like the folks in the Otherworld when they cross back over - the good ones and the bad. And they get rid a mice.

One thing I've never been accused of is slowly coming into something. I always go full on (and ask) "Now how do we make this work?"

In the realist, faith is not born from miracles, but miracles from faith.

Do what makes you happy. Keep it simple. Do the research. Work hard. Look ahead.

How can you be happy in this world? You have a hole in your heart. You have a gateway inside you to lands beyond the world you know. They will call you, as you grow.

Like the air-invested heron, great persons should conduct themselves; and the higher they be, the less they should show.

Someday, you will find the one who will watch every sunrise with you until the sunset of your life.

Poetry should be written the way adultery is committed: on the run, on the sly, during the time not accounted for. And then you come home, as if nothing ever happened.

If you really want to help the poor, help the rich. They're the ones who will invest, build more factories, create more jobs.