I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.

Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.

Accept things to which fate binds you, love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

Now is the accepted time.

I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or by water.

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.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

Individuals are the sum of their unique experiences, challenges, and accomplishments. What matters is not the barriers they face, but how they choose to confront them. And their race is not to blame for everything—good or bad—that happens in their lives.

To appreciate the beauty of a snowflake, it is necessary to stand out in the cold.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story.

Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionately to their occupancy of your thoughts.

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

Much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars in the world.

No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.