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

Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.

Whatever happens at all happens as it should; you will find this true, if you watch narrowly.

Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined or the insect, as well for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.

This is the thing that I was born to do.

Let us resolve to be masters, not victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions.

One love, one heart, one destiny.

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.

A fair character is a fair fortune.

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.

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

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.

Love is never wasted, for its value does not rest upon reciprocity.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of being and ideal grace.

The only abnormality is the incapacity to love.

To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl of be found in the dark folds of life.

There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.

People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.