When we do the best that we can we never know what miracle is wrought in our life or in the life of another.
There is plenty of courage among us for the abstract but not for the concrete.
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
Not the senses I have but what I do with them is my kingdom.
People don't like to think, if one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.
In a word, literature is my utopia.
For years to come the debris of a convulsed world will beset our steps. It will require a purpose stronger than any man and worthy of all men to calm and inspirit us. A sane society whose riches are happy children, men and women, beautiful with peace and creative activity, is not going to be ordained for us. We must make it ourselves.
There is nothing more beautiful, I think, than the evanescent fleeting images and sentiments presented by a language one is just becoming familiar with—ideas that flit across the mental sky, shaped and tinted by capricious fancy.
The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart.
I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the colour and fragrance of a flower - the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.
It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks.
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming of it.
Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
To be banished from Rome is but to live outside of Rome.
Virgil is serene and lovely like a marble Apollo in the moonlight; Homer is a beautiful, animated youth in the full sunlight with the wind in his hair.
Thus I came up out of Egypt and stood before Sinai, and a power divine touched my spirit and gave it sight, so that I beheld many wonders. And from the sacred mountain I heard a voice which said, ‘Knowledge is love and light and vision.
One cannot consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
Good friends walk in when the old ones walk out.
I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers.
As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.
The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker.
Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
For three things I thank God every day of my life: thanks that he has vouchsafed me knowledge of his works; deep thanks that he has set in my darkness the lamp of faith; deep, deepest thanks that I have another life to look forward to--a life joyous with light and flowers and heavenly song.
What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.
I sometimes wonder if the hand is not more sensitive to the beauties of sculpture than the eye. I should think the wonderful rhythmical flow of lines and curves could be more subtly felt than seen. Be this as it may, I know I can feel the heart-throbs of the ancient Greeks in their marble gods and goddesses.
It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.
What I am looking for is not out there. It is in me.
There are moments when I feel that the Shylocks, the Judases, and even the Devil are broken spokes in the great wheel of good which shall in due time be mad whole.
Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves - and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either.
There is joy in self-forgetfulness. So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness.
The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.
As my college days draw to a close, I find myself looking forward with beating heart and bright anticipations to what the future holds of activity for me. My share in the work of the world may be limited; but the fact that it is work makes it precious. Nay, the desire and will to work is optimism itself.
Self pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in the world.
I distrust the rash optimism in this country that cries, Hurrah, we're all right! This is the greatest nation on earth, when there are grievances that call loudly for redress.
Four things to learn in life: To think clearly without hurry or confusion; To love everybody sincerely; To act in everything with the highest motives; To trust God unhesitatingly.
History is a record of the incessant struggle of humanity against ignorance and oppression.
No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.
We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world—the company of those who have known suffering.
It is an unspeakable boon to me to be able to speak in winged words that need no interpretation.
God sleepeth not, and He will visit His judgement upon you. Better were it for you to have a millstone hung about your neck and sink into the sea than to be hated and despised of all men.
It has been said that life has treated me harshly; and sometimes I have complained in my heart because many pleasures of human experience have been withheld from me...if much has been denied me, much, very much, has been given me...
It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.
A bend in the road is not the end of the road… Unless you fail to make the turn.
Even as the roots, shut in the darksome earth, Share in the tree-top's joyance, and conceive Of sunshine and wide air and winged things, By sympathy of nature, so do I.
I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of northern Alabama.
So much has been given to me; I have no time to ponder over that which has been denied.
We would never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.
Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.
What I'm looking for is not out there, it is in me.
