Without death and decay, how could life go on?

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice - no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service.

How beautiful the leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.

To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday.

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: ‘To rise above little things’.

The longer I live, the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.

In winter the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity.

The technological revolution seems to have no higher purpose than to render humanity obsolete.

all the tall mad mountains of her mind

The gospel that has been preached in our churches has not been fair to the African continent. It has left us in a beggarly state, waiting on God for things we could produce by and for ourselves

When we our betters see bearing our woes, We scarcely think our miseries our foes.

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

I mean, I'm certainly not a 'teaophyte,' or whatever the word would be.

[on Emilio Estevez] Truly, my first love.

Scapegrace leaped up. “I am the Killer Supreme! I make murder into an art form!” Skulduggery hit him again and Scapegrace did a little twirl before falling.

Look, I come from vaudeville, I come from burlesque, I come from heartaches, I come from sadness, I come from gladness, I come from work and sweat and respect for the craft.