To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself.

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.

Don't try to preserve your energy. Rather, think of a worthwhile purpose in life and burn yourself up.... for that's what is satisfying and fulfilling.

Our attitude will determine what we will strive for, whom we will be, and how our life will turn out.

Every moment comes to you pregnant with divine purpose . . . . Once it leaves your hands and your power to do with it as you please, it plunges into eternity, to remain forever what you made it.

What you give becomes an investment that will return to you multiplied at some point in the future.

My first civil disobedience arrest for social justice was in 1986 for protesting the SDI.

Then my life crashed and burned down: trials, men, drama, no self-love, no identity. A little identity, but not a lot of love for myself, my life.

If the war on terror is endless, you could forget about democracy.

We repose an unwise confidence in any government, or in any men, when we invest them officially with too much, or an unnecessary quantity of, discretionary power.

I forget that he is another person; instead it feels like he is another part of me, just as essential as a heart or an eye or an arm.

There's a flip side to having prominent public intellectuals, which is that they start meddling in politics and often with quite disastrous results.