Let shining Charity adorn your zeal, The noblest impulse generous minds can feel.

She who means no mischief does it all.

Deceit is the false road to happiness; and all the joys we travel through to vice, like fairy banquets, vanish when we touch them.

The man who pauses on the paths of treason, Halts on a quicksand, the first step engulfs him.

Reason gains all people by compelling none.

Mischief and malice grow on the same branch of the tree of evil.

Courage is poorly housed that dwells in numbers; the lion never counts the herd that are about him, nor weighs how many flocks he has to scatter.

Youth is ever apt to judge in haste, and lose the medium in the wild extreme.

Customs form us all, our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed beliefs; are consequences of our place of birth.

Union of hearts, not hands, does a marriage make, and sympathy of mind keeps love awake.

Man is the circled oak; woman the ivy.

Familiarity breeds sentiment before contempt.

When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away even if it's only a glass of water.

Sheer effort enables those with nothing to surpass those with privilege and position.

There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, 'Truth is the daughter of Time.'

You are not broken. You break again and again because that's what breaking means. To be whole.

The genius of America's endless war machine is that, learning from the unpleasantness of the Vietnam war protests, it has rendered the costs of war largely invisible.

Prayer presupposes faith. No prayer is in vain. Prayer is like any other action.

I'm a really cautious person, so I don't let myself get into near-death experiences. I'm not into the idea of skydiving or anything.

No one who has come to true greatness has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to the people, and what God has given them he gives it for mankind.

Soldier, rest! Thy warfare o'er.