Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.

No garden is without its weeds.

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take for better, for worse, as his portion; that, though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.

The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily.

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.

My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.

Nobody is equal to anybody. Even the same man is not equal to himself on different days.

If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you must look forward, do so prayerfully. However, the wisest thing you can do is be present in the present...gratefully.

You will find rest from vain fancies if you perform every act in life as though it were your last.