Littera scripta manet – ‚The written word will remain‘. That’s true, but it won’t be that much comfort to me.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

Every time I plant a seed, He say kill it before it grow, he say kill it before they grow.

To the people I forgot, you weren’t on my mind for some reason and you probably don’t deserve any thanks anyway.

When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it.

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.

Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.

Things in themselves have no life in them. A car can’t comfort or encourage you. A house means nothing if there’s no life and love inside.

In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.

The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.

I wish I had known when I was in the White House what I know now about the Third World.

A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.

When good Americans die they go to Paris.

I seldom think of politics more than eighteen hours a day.

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.

It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.

When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.

You don’t have the same mentality as you did five years ago – even one year. People are always changing, and I believe that everyone deserves the space to change and for people to recognize their change.

If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?

Fools admire, but men of sense approve.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!

He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.

Throughout my years in business, I discovered something. I would always ask why you do things. The answers that I would invariably get are: ‚Oh, that’s just the way things are done around here.‘ Nobody knows why they do what they do. Nobody thinks very deeply about things in business.

If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.

Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.

I wear a hat on stage so that people won’t be blinded by the reflection from my head. Also, if I don’t wear a hat, there’s no way that the hat can be at that level by itself on the stage.

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Whenever something went wrong when I was young – if I had a pimple or if my hair broke – my mom would say, ‚Sister mine, I’m going to make you some soup.‘ And I really thought the soup would make my pimple go away or my hair stronger.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

I still close my eyes and go home – I can always draw from that.

The man who has no imagination has no wings.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

I have learned to know God. I have recast my social belief… All my admirers are married; most of my friends are dead; and I stand with all the world before me, where to choose a path to make in it.

No one lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.

The things hardest to bear are sweetest to remember.

Philosophy begins in wonder.

Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.

The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.

Life is wasted on the living.

A home without books is a body without soul.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.

Everybody always laughs because I feel so much more comfortable with, like, a giant paper bag on my whole body and paint on my face. Sometimes I try really hard to take it all off. But inevitably what’s underneath is still not a straight edge. And I don’t think it ever will be.

Now is the winter of our discontent.

To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.

I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, ‚I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,‘ and I actually meant it.

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

Changing your mind is probably one of the most beautiful things people can do. And I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things over the years.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

That old law about ‚an eye for an eye‘ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.

Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

For Africa to me… is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

There is so much that people take for granted.