“Most good leaders want the perspective of people they trust.”

“Life is a gift... Life is a test... Life is temporary assignment....”

“I never could bring myself to trust a traitor,” the Baron said. “Not even a traitor I created.”

“Passion is different from interest. Those who are just interested in things have the “wish”, but passionate people have the “will”

“CREATIVE IMAGINATION—Through the faculty of Creative Imagination, the finite human mind has direct communication with Infinite Intelligence.” 

“A walk begins with one step and then another and another. No matter how long your journey seems, if you take enough steps in the right direction, you will eventually arrive at your desired destination.”

“The Norwegians have a saying that I think captures their attitude: "There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.

“All great change in America begins at the dinner table.”

“To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.’ Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.” —Letter to John Norvell, 14 June 1807 [Works 10:417--18]” 

“You may as well know, also that every great leader, from the dawn of civilization down to the present, was a dreamer.

“The end of life is not to be happy, nor to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but to do the will of God, come what may.”

“For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral? But if a spiral, am I going up or down it? How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, "I never realized my loss till this moment"? The same leg is cut off time after time.”

“If you want to be used by God, you must care about what God cares about, what he cares about most is the redemption of the people he made.”

“God said that when a man and a woman are married, the two will become one flesh, but He never said it would be easy. Good relationships require a lot of hard work, education, and willingness to meet each other’s needs.” 

“Failing isn't bad when you learn what not to do.”