We have seen better days.

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

Waves are inspiring not because they rise and fall, but because each time they fall they never fail to rise again.

Surely what a man does when he is in an uncomfortable situation is the best evidence for the sort of man he is.

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

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

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. The proceed to improve on the worst.

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

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.

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.

A fair character is a fair fortune.

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.

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.

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.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Man is neither angel nor beast; and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the beast.

Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day; it helps. Then, when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

The secret of success is conviction and persistence.

Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.