Choose the company of your superiors whenever you can have it.

As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless.

The mere brute pleasure of reading - the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.

If we do not plant knowledge when young, it will give us no shade when we are old.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

Being pretty on the inside means you don't hit your brother and you eat all your peas - that's what my grandma taught me.

Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

You must look into people, as well as at them.

A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful.

Tape the sound of the moon fading at dawn. Give it to your mother to listen to when she's in sorrow.

[E]very Man who comes among us, and takes up a piece of Land, becomes a Citizen, and by our Constitution has a Voice in Elections, and a share in the Government of the Country.

As the stupidest person in the room, I always had the most to gain.

Leadership is a dynamic tension between where a politician thinks his country must go and where his voters want it to go.

You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go.

[The daguerreotype] itself must undoubtedly be regarded as the most important, and perhaps the most extraordinary triumph of modern science.

I'm always looking for just the right song that has something to say.

We can go through our whole lives worrying about our future happiness, and totally miss where true peace lives-right here, right now.

We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the culture of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail.