“I was very glad I could afford to say no. With the income from my businesses, I didn’t need money from acting. I never wanted to be in a financially vulnerable position, where I had to take a part I didn’t like.”

“If you are ready for the secret, you already possess one half of it,therefore, you will readily recognize the other half the moment it reaches your mind.” 

“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”

“War is not a polite recreation but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to understand that and not play at war. Our attitude towards the fearful necessity of war ought to be stern. It boils down to this: we should have done with humbug, and let war be war and not a game. Otherwise, war is a favourite pastime of the idle and frivolous...”

“When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.” 

“You cannot make God stop loving you, because his love is based on who he is, not what you do. It is based on his character, not your conduct.”

“It's your aptitude, not just your attitude that determines your ultimate altitude."

“Let your autobiography contain these words; "I was able to think positively, love affectionately and work efficiently". Thinking, loving and working are what make us different from animals and trees.”

“In 1800, the average person consumed 5 pounds per year;7 now we average 152 pounds a year.”

“Desperate people are the most dangerous.”

“Without Him our daily routine would become tiresome and tedious, a drudgery rather than a joy.”

“You can always tell God how you feel and ask for His help and strength, but talking about negative feelings just to be talking does no good at all. The Bible instructs us not to speak with idle (inoperative, nonworking) words (see Matt. 12:36). If negative feelings persist, asking for prayer or seeking advice is a good thing, but once again I want to stress that talking just to be talking is useless.”

“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.”

“People can poison people; people can also promote people. People can push people up; people can also pull people down. Don’t just follow people cheerfully; follow people carefully!”

“It’s a simple thing to offer encouragement, but it can have a tremendous effect on someone’s life.”