The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.

It’s not easy being young. It’s hard to know what to do.

If you don’t set the tone for the day, the devil will set it for you.

If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?

I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people’s choices. If I feel good about my body, I don’t go around making fun of other people’s weight or appearance. We’re hard on each other because we’re using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived deficiency.

Although the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.

A man’s own manner and character is what most becomes him.

Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

Indecision may or may not be my problem.

Time is kind of an amazing thing because you can do so much with it. I think people underestimate time… I don’t want to just sit on my phone for hours.

Anything I do, I want to do it well.

When schools flourish, all flourishes.

The trained mind is a rich mind.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

I’m not the most patient of people.

You get one life. I’m going to embrace mine.

It is his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty.

I think that a president needs to have a variety of views presented. But also, there has to be a team effort, because otherwise, I think it creates a dissonance and difficulty.

It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.

The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.

Jealousy… is a mental cancer.

In this business you have to develop a thick skin, but I’m always going to feel everything. It’s my nature.

Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.

It is impossible to underrate human intelligence – beginning with one’s own.

I wish everyone well, but you need to focus on yourself. You need to stop putting your hand out. Everyone wants hand outs. Everyone wants things for free. You’ve got to put in the work. You’ve got to grind. You’ve got go through the struggle, and you’ve got to get it.

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.

One must steer, not talk.

Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is.

Fears are nothing more than a state of mind.

You’re president, if you conclude my judgment is not the right judgment, I abide by that, but I want an opportunity to have an input.

Indeed, it is as important to learn how to receive a blessing as it is to be willing to give one.

It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

If I was to go to sleep before midnight, I would feel weird about myself, like I wasted a day. My most productive hours are between midnight and five.

We have come to a turning point in the road. If we turn to the right mayhap our children and our children’s children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word.

If I had a talent, it was for looking askew at everything, possibly more than my contemporaries. But I had to really push myself to be a writer.

I have only one counsel for you – be master.

As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it.

The difference between us and them, between you and success, is not that you never fail, but it’s how you recover from those failures – is that you keep getting up time and time again. You figure out what you did wrong, and then you make it right. I say that to my kids every day.

Whenever you’re going through a tough time, generally, you become more compassionate, you become softer, you become more thoughtful, kinder. These are all spiritual qualities that will help you to align yourself with God and God consciousness rather than with a split fear-based consciousness.

Education is what you learn after you leave school.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

Small aim is a crime.

He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust.

The truth is, somebody is always talking about you, so you have to let it go… if it’s not a part of your God-given destiny.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

There are going to be things I’m not going to be great at, times when I make mistakes, 100%.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don’t regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed.

When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.

I just usually go with my own taste. If I like something, and it happens to be against the law, well, then I might have a problem.

Learning about climate change triggered my depression in the first place. But it was also what got me out of my depression, because there were things I could do to improve the situation. I don’t have time to be depressed anymore.

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.