The best-educated human being is the one who understands most about the life in which he is placed.

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

What is the use of such terrible diligence as many tire themselves out with, if they always postpone their exchange of smiles with Beauty and Joy to cling to irksome duties and relations?

I can see, and that is why I can be so happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a man-made world.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.

What is the use of such terrible diligence as many tire themselves out with, if they always postpone their exchange of smiles with Beauty and Joy to cling to irksome duties and relations?

Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves-and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves, either.