At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past.

The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

Be of love a little more careful than of anything.

Humanity I love you because when you're hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink.

Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

I imagine that yes is the only living thing.

Unbeing dead isn't being alive.

If you hope for happiness in the world, hope for it from God, and not from the world.

We should always look upon ourselves as God's servants, placed in God's world, to do his work; and accordingly labour faithfully for him; not with a design to grow rich and great, but to glorify God, and do all the good we possibly can.

Once more, Never think that you can live to God by your own power or strength; but always look to and rely on him for assistance, yea, for all strength and grace.

We are a long time in learning that all our strength and salvation is in God.

I bless God for this retirement: I never was more thankful for any thing than I have been of late for the necessity I am under of self-denial in many respects.

The all-seeing eye of God beheld our deplorable state; infinite pity touched the heart of the Father of mercies; and infinite wisdom laid the plan of our recovery.

I have a secret thought from some things I have observed, that God may perhaps design you for some singular service in the world.

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women.

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

The past, the present and the future are really one: they are today.

To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.

All places where women are excluded tend downward to barbarism; but the moment she is introduced, there come in with her courtesy, cleanliness, sobriety, and order.

Any mind that is capable of real sorrow is capable of good.

Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides.

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.

I became a lesbian because of women, because women are beautiful, strong, and compassionate.

If the world were a logical place, men would ride side saddle.

Humor comes from self-confidence.

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

You have to make it happen.

There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.

Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.

If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can't deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.

When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality they are on a level where glorious and dazzling achievements are possible, which can make a man's name live for thousands of years.

Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things.

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

The possibility of divorce renders both marriage partners stricter in their observance of the duties they owe to each other. Divorces help to improve morals and to increase the population.

When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.

Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.

Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.

No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.

The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.