But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand.

The task ahead of us is never as great as the power behind us.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

Genial manners are good, and power of accommodation to any circumstance, but the high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man is to be born with a bias to some pursuit, which finds him in employment and happiness, -- whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statutes, or songs. I doubt not this was the meaning of Socrates, when he pronounced artists the only truly wise, as being actually, not apparently so.

Every great achievement is the victory of a flaming heart.

Don't choose the better person, choose the person who makes a better you.

It is dainty to be sick if you have leisure and convenience for it.