The future depends on what you do today.

You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man’s actions are, such must be his spirit.

Don’t be ‘a writer’. Be writing.

I’m an idealist. I don’t know where I’m going but I’m on my way.

The thought of only being a creature of the present and the past was troubling. I longed for a future, too, with hope in it. The desire to be free, awakened my determination to act, to think, and to speak.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he as imagined, he will meet with success unexpectedly in common hours.

Be happy with what you have while working for what you want.

The things are mighty few on earth That wishes can attain. Whate'er we want of any worth We've go to work to gain.

We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do things, we can accomplish those goals.

The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consist in nothing more than in the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star.

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't.

I just want God’s will. And He’s allowed to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promise land . . . So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.

Action expresses priorities.

No house should ever be on any hill or on anything. It should be of the hill, belonging to it, so hill and house could live together each the happier for the other.

If we do not make common cause to save the good old ship of the Union on this voyage, nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage.

Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.

Nothing is more precious than being in the present moment. Fully alive, fully aware.

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world; and that is an idea whose time has come.

Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today.

They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.

No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

One who is serious all day will never have a good time, while one who is frivolous all day will never establish a household.

The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.

Vision without execution is hallucination.

The change in motion is proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to allow his vision wherever it takes him.

Do not seek to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as they are, and you will find them.