“I cannot stop thinking that I died before I was born and that at my death I will return to the same state
“Reason now gazes above the realm of the dark but warm feelings as the alpine peaks do above the clouds. They behold the sun more clearly and distinctly, but they are cold and unfruitful
“Trust no future, however pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act, act in the living present! Heart within and God overhead
“The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service
“Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of; they just turn up some of the ill weeds on to the surface
“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
“The value of life ist not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them; a man may live long yet very little
“Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in
“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity
“Live for today. Multitudes of people have failed to live for today. . . . What they have had within their grasp today they have missed entirely, because only the future has intrigued them
“The more that learn to read the less learn how to make a living. That's one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living
“Do not waste your time on social questions. What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.
“Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age
“Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed