“That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal sufferring, "No future bliss can make up for it" not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”

“A genius is simply one who has taken full possession of his own mind and directed it toward objectives of his own choosing, without permitting outside influences to discourage or mislead him.”

“Those who have the privilege to know have the duty to act.”

“Renunciation without aversion is not lasting.”

“Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”

“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.”

“Trust in Him Think of three specific friends, neighbors, or coworkers you see regularly. Commit to listen intentionally the next time you’re together, as you trust God to show you how to bless them.”

“More friction and tensions are caused in a family by tone of voice than for any other one reason.”

“Never complain, never explain. Resist the temptation to defend yourself or make excuses.”

“There is a difference between WISHING for a thing and being READY to receive it.

“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.”

“I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.”

“Pick the axe; chop off the anger; burn the pieces and bury the ashes. Anger kills before it is noticed. It travels faster to the destination to destroy long before conscience arrives to regret it!”

“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 your conversation be without malice or envy, for it is a sign of a tractable and commendable nature; and in all cases of passion admit reason to govern.”