He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has arrived.

Reality doesn't go away when it is ignored.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself—and be lenient to everybody else.

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.

The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands.

I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good, content with my harm.

If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice; and have received a great deal of kindness, not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it.

I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of everything else to which he is justly entitled.

I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare—I have no use for him, either.