The best rose-bush, after all, is not that which has the fewest thorns, but that which bears the finest roses.

A clean and sensitive conscience, a steady and scrupulous integrity in small things as well as large, is the most valuable of all possessions, to a nation as to an individual.

Every country-or at least every country that is fit for habitation-has its own rivers; and every river has its own quality; and it is the part of wisdom to know and love as many as you can, seeing each in the fairest possible light, and receiving from each the best that it has to give.

It is better to burn the candle at both ends, and in the middle, too, than to put it away in the closet and let the mice eat it.

Let me but find it in my heart to say, When vagrant wishes beckon me astray, "This is my work; my blessing, not my doom; Of all who live, I am the one by whom This work can best be done in the right way."

Love is not about getting - but giving.

There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher.