Today we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation’s promise through civility, courage, compassion and character.

We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it.

Never at any point did I feel like missing a training session. I was very keen on improving as a cricketer and as an international player.

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

Whoever won’t fight when the President calls him, deserves to be kicked back in his hole and kept there.

I like playing for the purple and gold. This is where I want to finish up.

I think the best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I’ve got Alzheimer’s.

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

Real living is living for others.

Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.

What my character is or how many jails I have lounged in, or wards or walls or wassails, how many lonely-heart poetry readings I have dodged, is beside the point. A man’s soul or lack of it will be evident with what he can carve upon a white sheet of paper.

We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

I loved being Maleficent. I was quite sad to put my staff down and put my horns away because somehow, she just lives in a different world.

Meditation is to get insight, to get understanding and compassion, and when you have them, you are compelled to act.

A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.

My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.

A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.

I want to marry Arline because I love her – which means I want to take care of her. That is all there is to it. I want to take care of her. I am anxious for the responsibilities and uncertainties of taking care of the girl I love.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.

Sense perceptions can be and often are false and deceptive, however real they may appear to us. Where there is realization outside the senses, it is infallible. It is proved not by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within.

It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‚I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.‘

Social Security is based on a principle. It’s based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat.

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.

I think those who have a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their own life, and those that help them should be free from prosecution.

Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it – and sometimes three.

Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t appreciate kindness and compassion.

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

If you’re in trouble, or hurt or need – go to the poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help – the only ones.

The more I see of deer, the more I admire them as mountaineers. They make their way into the heart of the roughest solitudes with smooth reserve of strength, through dense belts of brush and forest encumbered with fallen trees and boulder piles, across canons, roaring streams, and snow-fields, ever showing forth beauty and courage.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.

He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.

You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy’s ranks.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.

I’m not ashamed to say I fear something.

He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.

When you’re around me and really see that all I do is live and breathe for my work, it’s not strange, it’s just Gaga.

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

If you would judge, understand.

A man will speedily sit down and sympathize with a friend’s griefs, but if he sees him honored and esteemed, he is apt to regard him as a rival and does not so readily rejoice with him. This ought not to be; without effort, we ought to be happy in our brother’s happiness.

I have promised myself that I’m going to do everything I can for as long as I can.

If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit.

I got quite annoyed after the Haiti earthquake. A baby was taken from the wreckage and people said it was a miracle. It would have been a miracle had God stopped the earthquake. More wonderful was that a load of evolved monkeys got together to save the life of a child that wasn’t theirs.

To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.

I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one. And I’m still fanatical, but now I’m a little less fanatical.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

Character is expressed through our behavior patterns, or natural responses to things.

I’ve seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.

I’m committed to the fight game.

What we have found in this country, and maybe we’re more aware of it now, is one problem that we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice.

There are a lot of ‚chicken Christians.‘ Chickens are generally afraid of life, and they seldom fly or reach their potential in life. And when a storm comes, all they seem to do is flap around the chicken yard, stirring up dirt and running to the chicken house.