“Many countries of the world, I said, had constitutions, but in almost every case they were documents in which governments told their people what they could do. The United States had a constitution, I said, that was different from all the others because in it the people tell their government what it can do. Its three most important words are “We the people,” its most important principle, freedom.” 

“Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of--something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possesed your soul have been but hints of it--tantalizing glimspes, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the things we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.”

“Let's pray that the human race never escapes Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.”

“the desire and hunger for education is the key to real learning.”

“Let go of yesterday. Let today be a new beginning and be the best that you can, and you’ll get to where God wants you to be.”

“There is a simple rule we can follow to guide us in our conversation: If it is good, uplifting, wholesome, and pleasant, say all you want to, but if it is evil, negative, critical, and complaining, then don’t say it. Ask God to change your heart so there is not even a hint of wanting to say it. What is in our heart will eventually come out of our mouth, so we cannot change what we say unless we change what we think.”

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”

“Todo lo que hagas en la vida será insignificante, pero es importante que lo hagas.”

“I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with Truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments; it is true that the story will take the shape of an autobiography. But”

“I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”

“Morality is a contraband in war.”

“If you want to wait till your black hairs turn grey and your teeth start pulling out before you become a leader, you are either too fast to prove your ignorance, or you are too late to know who you are made of.”

“Our imaginations are so stilted. The very thought of being like Jesus is breathtaking.”

“There are many emotions we have to resist, but happiness is not one of them! So go ahead and be as happy as you can possibly be.”

“Satan exalted himself above God and endeavored to get man to doubt the reliability of God’s Word.”