Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind.

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.

The world is governed by opinion.

Fix your eyes on perfection and you make almost everything speed towards it.

We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who is over eager and impatient in the pursuit of pleasure.

Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do.

May your life preach more loudly than your lips.

Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.

Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost.

All virtue lies in individual action, in inward energy, in self determination. There is no moral worth in being swept away by a crowd even toward the best objective.

It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind's dignity.

What the American people understand is that I look at what we need to get done to keep the American people safe and to move our interests forward, and I make those decisions.

People can get accustomed to anything, right? Habit does things to people.

Luck is predictable; the harder you work, the luckier you get.

It is very hard to stay alive just for your own sake. It is very hard to stare into day after day without another familiar face staring back. It turns your heart into a purposeless muscle.

I caught my wife in bed with another man and I was crushed. So I said, "Get off of me, you two!"

Mysticism is the study of power, its use, and its abuse. At every moment you are getting stronger or you are growing weaker. At every moment your attention field is increasing or decreasing.

The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.

Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all.

The true currency of life is time, not money, and we've all got a limited stock of that.

I follow my instincts and my excitement.