When leisure is a selfish luxury, its very activity, when it stirs, is apt to be only a kind of indolence taking exercise, that it may the better digest its selfishness.

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.

I will do what I must to protect you. If you were seriously hurt…Don’t make me live with that. Don’t make me have to survive your death.

The civilized are those who get more out of life than the uncivilized, and for this we are not likely to be forgiven.

We need an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without.

This is what it means to be a slave; to be abused and bear it; compelled by violence to suffer wrong.

I think all good writing is a struggle. To write as well as you feel you can has to be a struggle, almost by definition, because you could always improve.

A person cannot all of a sudden become good at what they do just by switching streams.

Sometimes with success comes some crazy that goes along with it.

Beyond each corner, new directions lie in wait.

Love is basic for the birth of a true society, while violence has in it the essence of anti-sociality. Love is positive, is eternal: violence is degeneracy, it is it's own destruction.

It was my fortune, or misfortune, to be called to the office of Chief Executive without any previous political training.