“Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.”

“Humour is...the all-consoling and...the all-excusing, grace of life.”

“You turn friends away before you discover they were good after all; you give up on your dreams before you realize you were very close to your success all that while. Be patient; don’t rush things!”

“If you can’t manage your own mental attitude, what makes you think you can manage others?”

“No, none of these things are the key. When it comes right down to it, I know of only one factor that separates those who consistently shine from those who don't: The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure. Nothing else has the same kind of impact on people's ability to achieve and to accomplish whatever their minds and hearts desire.”

“Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable.”

“Riches begin in the form of thought! The amount is limited only by the person in whose mind the thought is put into motion. Faith removes limitations!”

“Leadership is the capacity and will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence. —Bernard Montgomery,”

“To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.’ Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.” —Letter to John Norvell, 14 June 1807 [Works 10:417--18]” 

“I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.”

“Every Christian would agree that a man's spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God.”

“Another's wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter wormwood.”

“But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.”

“Holding a grudge is never positive or appropriate.”