Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the way of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired.

Every man is actually weak, and apparently strong. To himself, he seems weak; to others, formidable.

The philosophy of waiting is sustained by all the oracles of the universe.

Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.

Experience is the only teacher, and we get his lesson indifferently in any school.

The whole value of history, of biography, is to increase my self-trust, by demonstrating what man can be and do.