There is no right more universal and more sacred, because lying so near the root of existence, than the right of men to their own labor.

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.

There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies.

And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.

Knowledge has no value except that which can be gained from its application toward some worthy end.

The sight of women talking together has always made men uneasy nowadays it means rank subversion.

Abortion is an act of desperation. It's an awful solution to a situation that God can work out for good through adoption.

The point of what I do is that it doesn't really matter what a book or a story is as long it moves you, informs you, challenges you, entertains you, or changes you.

America is very decentralized in how it supports the humanities, unlike European countries where virtually everything stems from the central government.

When you shoot a movie so quickly you can't really afford to shoot a bunch of extra footage because you don't have that luxury.

The nature of the hybrid research/design model means that we often can see design efforts as attempts not to concretize the outcomes of research but instead to justify, promote, or initiate them

Big banks are more dangerous than standing armies, and the practice of borrowing and spending money to be paid back by the next generation is stealing from their future.