Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.
Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.
In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.
He who refuses to stoop, who cannot be bribed by the promise of success or the fear of failure – who walks the highway of the right, and in disaster stands erect, is the only victor.
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments there are consequences.
Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.
The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death – that is heroism.
A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains, he gives to others.
Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.
Happiness is not a reward – it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment – it is a result.
Intelligence, integrity and courage are the great pillars that support the State. Above all, the citizens of a free nation should honor the brave and independent man – the man of stainless integrity, of will and intellectual force.
There can be goodness without much intelligence – but it seems to me that perfect intelligence and perfect goodness must go together.
Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.
Every religion in the world has denounced every other religion as a fraud. That proves to me that they all tell the truth – about others.
I regard the rights of men and women equal. In Love’s fair realm, husband and wife are king and queen, sceptered and crowned alike, and seated on the self-same throne.
I do not believe anything comes by chance. I regard the present as the necessary child of a necessary past.
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death.
It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.
Roscoe Conkling was a man of superb courage. He not only acted without fear, but he had that fortitude of soul which bears the consequences of the course pursued without complaint.
A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in superstition’s night, an inspiration and a prophecy.
Character is made of duty and love and sympathy, and, above all, of living and working for others.
What is it that distinguishes you and me from the lower animals – from the beasts? More, I say, than anything else, human sympathy – human sympathy.
If I owe Smith ten dollars and God forgives me, that doesn’t pay Smith.
A prayer that must have a cannon behind it better never be uttered. Forgiveness ought not to go in partnership with shot and shell. Love need not carry knives and revolvers.
Beauty is not all there is of poetry. It must contain the truth. It is not simply an oak, rude and grand, neither is it simply a vine. It is both. Around the oak of truth runs the vine of beauty.
Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.
I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot.
What light is to the eyes – what air is to the lungs – what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.
The more liberty you give away the more you will have.