Courtesy is doing that which nothing under the sun makes you do but human kindness. Courtesy springs from the heart; if the mind prompts the action, there is a reason; if there be a reason, it is not courtesy, for courtesy has no reason. Courtesy is good will, and good will is prompted by the heart full of love to be kind. Only the generous man is truly courteous. He gives freely without a thought of receiving anything in return.

Success consists of being and doing, not simply accumulating.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

A magazine editor recently asked me to sit down on my 40th birthday and write an article on the most important things I had learned in my first 40 years. I told him that the chief thing I had learned was that the copybook maxims are true, but that too many people forget this once they go out into the heat and hustle and bustle of the battle of life and only realize their truth once one foot is beginning to slip into the grave. The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.

Jealousy is an inner consciousness of one's own inferiority. It is a mental cancer.

The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies.

It is when things go hardest, when life becomes most trying, that there is greatest need for having a fixed goal.