There is a southern proverb - fine words butter no parsnips.

For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.

It is wonderful what strength of purpose and boldness and energy of will are roused by the assurance that we are doing our duty.

To all, to each, a fair good-night, and pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.

The willow which bends to the tempest often escapes better than the oak which resists it.

O woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!

Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening.

Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities.

If you once turn on your side after the hour at which you ought to rise, it is all over. Bolt up at once.

How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.

Look back, and smile on perils past.

You want to be good. All right, I can understand that. But you have to be careful who you let define your good.

I am chained to the earth to pay for freedom of my eyes.

On a practical level, poetry isn't something anybody has really made a great living at. I might sell some books and, once in a while, someone might pay to hear me read.

Some Christians want enough of Christ to be identified with him but not enough to be seriously inconvenienced.

Flattery is from the teeth out. Sincere appreciation is from the heart out.

When Clinton said he was going to create 8 million new jobs, I didn't think they were all going to be tax collectors.

In no other game but love can you make all the right moves and still lose.

Remind a man of what he remembers, and you will make him forget it.

There's no free ride. Someone always pays and if you don't know who that someone is, it's probably you.

I think we need editorial oversight now more than ever. Anything we can do to help newspapers find new ways of expression that will help them get paid, I am all for.