Fortune favors the brave.

God, give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Most obstacles melt away when we make up our minds to walk boldly through them.

Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.

Opportunities don’t often come along. So, when they do, you have to grab them.

Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind, spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.

Two of the hardest tests in life: The patience to wait for the right moment and the courage to accept whatever you encounter.

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.

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.

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.

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

A fair character is a fair fortune.

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