There is tonic in the things that men do not love to hear. Free speech is to a great people what the winds are to oceans ... and where free speech is stopped miasma is bred, and death comes fast.

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.

Truth is a hard master, and costly to serve, but it simplifies all problems.

Victory takes sides on people who are more compatible with nature and future.

Be the best of yourself.

Everybody, sooner or later, will have to go under the knife. Let's hope they make out as well as I did.

I was real good at music and real bad at everything else.

Once your writing is out there, you can't control how other people perceive it. All you can do is stand in your truth.

Nobody looks good in their darkest hours. But it's those hours that make us what we are.

One day you can be a kid, but another day you have to be like this is your job, you play tennis. You have to work for that.

Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same territory.

Remember: if you take bivouac equipment along, you will bivouac.