“no one ever is defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.”

“Instinct and purpose often operate like a marriage.”

“We must take responsibility for our responses to daily events, especially the little offenses that tempt us to be angry.”

“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]” 

“There is a 100% assurance that what your friend’s enemy tells you about your friend is false. What your failure tells you about your passion is fake. Don’t give up!”

“When Albert Einstein was asked what he would really like to know about the Universe he replied,'is it friendly?”

“Every adversity, every failure, every heartbreak, carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”

“Another of Brother Lawrence’s helpful ideas was to pray shorter conversational prayers continually through the day rather than trying to pray long sessions of complex prayers.”

“I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, that the dart belongs in usufruct to the living.”

“Men take on the nature and the habits and the POWER OF THOUGHT of those with whom they associate in a spirit of sympathy and harmony.”

“If you are influenced by the opinions of others, you will have no desire of your own.”

“With my past forgiven, my present secure, and my future irrevocably guaranteed, why shouldn’t I be enthusiastically optimistic?”

“Connect. Embrace. Liberate. Love somebody. Just one person. And then spread that to two. And as many as you can. You'll see the difference it makes.”

“The Lord Jesus Christ is preparing a home fit for all who live for Him, a place designed for the church triumphant. Let’s exemplify the work of His hands, for they are busy, on our behalf, building a city large enough to encompass His people of faith—an eternal home for the soul.”

“God must have loved the plain people; He made so many of them.”