Virtue is like precious odors—most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.

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.

The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.

One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.

This is the mark of a really admirable man: steadfastness in the face of trouble.

The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it's the same problem you had last year.

Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.

Whenever sorrow comes, be kind to it. For God has placed a pearl in sorrow’s hand.

Suppose your whole world seems to rock on its foundations. Hold on steadily, let it rock, and when the rocking is over, the picture will have reassembled itself into something much nearer to your heart's desire.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

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.

Constant effort and frequent mistakes are the stepping stones to genius.

All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows he knows his course is wrong and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.

There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher.

Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

We ought not to let either our joy at their faults or our grief at their success be idle, but in either case we ought to reflect, how we may become better than them by avoiding their errors, and by imitating their virtues not come short of them.

The universe does not favor the greedy, dishonest and evil people, even when it seems so. It helps honest, generous and virtuous people.

Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice; and yet everybody is content to hear.