We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.

Are you one of the flock that follows, or Are you one that shall lead the way?

If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you.

You cannot make progress without making decisions.

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.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.

I kept always two books in my pocket: one to read, one to write in.

There is nothing we can do that will bring us more in the way of rewards than the daily striving to become better adjusted, happier, more productive human beings. It’s a lifetime job and worth every minute we spend on it.

A student is not a container you have to fill, but a torch you have to light up.

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.

I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand.

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

Badness you can get easily, in quantity: the road is smooth, and it lies close by. But in front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steep is the way to it, and rough at first. But when you come to the top, then it is easy, even though it is hard.

It matters not what goal you seek It's secret here reposes; You've got to dig from week to week To get Results and Roses.

Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature; these are the spur and reins whereby al mankind are set on work, and guided.

For great and low there's but one test: 'Tis that each man do his best.

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take for better, for worse, as his portion; that, though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.