A fair character is a fair fortune.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.

I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.

So it is more useful to watch a man in time of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask it torn off, reality remains.

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

The liar is no better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth.

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.

Those disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory, sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them.

America’s abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the “common good,” but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.

Master of human destinies am I! Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait.

An aspiration is a joy forever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune which we can never exhaust and which gives us year by year a revenue of pleasurable activity.

The man who is truly good and wise will bear with dignity whatever fortune sends, and will always make the best of his circumstances.

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeit of our own behavior—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and teachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence.