We do not believe in immortality because we can prove it, but we try to prove it because we cannot help believing it.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

Is it so bad to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh.

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

Arguments are often like melodramas -- they have a predictable beginning, middle, and end.

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going.

Fear is not the natural state of civilized people.

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.

Nothing happens unless first we dream.

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

A short saying often contains much wisdom.

A short saying often contains much wisdom.

Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?

In each family a story is playing itself out, and each family's story embodies its hope and despair.

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

Boredom is like a pitiless zooming in on the epidermis of time. Every instant is dilated and magnified like the pores of the face.

Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power, that is not easy.

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.

There is no security on this earth. Only opportunity.

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.

Life is just a chance to grow a soul.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes.

If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right.

You're not obligated to win. You're obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day.

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive -- the risk to be alive and express what we really are.

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

He who angers you conquers you.

Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.