Death is the veil which those who live call life; They sleep, and it is lifted.

Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.

History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.

The soul's joy lies in doing.

O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?

Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it.

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.

Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.

Change is certain. Peace is followed by disturbances; departure of evil men by their return. Such recurrences should not constitute occasions for sadness but realities for awareness, so that one may be happy in the interim.

The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.

A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.

Reason respects the differences, and imagination the similitudes of things.

The undertaking of a new action brings new strength.

Don't let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.

Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.

It was as if all of the happiness, all of the magic of this blissful hour had flowed together into these stirring, bittersweet tones and flowed away, becoming temporal and transitory once more.

Nevertheless, whether in occurrences lasting days, hours or mere minutes at a time, I have experienced happiness often, and have had brief encounters with it in my later years, even in old age.

The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life's wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.

When trying to remember my share in the glow of the eternal present, in the smile of God, I return to my childhood, too, for that is where the most significant discoveries turn up.

Reason and judgment are the qualities of a leader.

Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth; when perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed; nor has anyone who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth any cause to wonder that he does not hear it.

The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

Be assured those will be thy worst enemies, not to whom thou hast done evil, but who have done evil to thee. And those will be thy best friends, not to whom thou hast done good, but who have done good to thee.

A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man.

It is human nature to hate the man whom you have hurt.

To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace.

A bad peace is even worse than war.

When men are full of envy they disparage everything, whether it be good or bad.

Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty.

Valor is of no service, chance rules all, and the bravest often fall by the hands of cowards.

True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united.

I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Coercion may prevent many transgressions; but it robs even actions which are legal of a part of their beauty. Freedom may lead to many transgressions, but it lends even to vices a less ignoble form.

One of the things that I did before I ran for president is I was a professional speaker. Not a motivational speaker - an inspirational speaker. Motivation comes from within. You have to be inspired. That's what I do. I inspire people, I inspire the public, I inspire my staff. I inspired the organizations I took over to want to succeed.

I would have to have people totally committed to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of this United States. And many of the Muslims, they are not totally dedicated to this country. They are not dedicated to our Constitution. Many of them are trying to force Sharia law on the people of this country.

The one thing that the President can do is to establish a real energy independence plan. We have all the recources we need right here in this country to establish energy independence if we had the leadership.

If the world market believed that we were serious about energy independence and we were going to utilize all of our own existing resources, the speculators would stop speculating up they start speculating down as we get our own oil out of the ground.

I do not believe abortion should be legal.

My presence in the social media and on the Internet is much bigger than many of the other candidates, including Mitt Romney. So, when you take the social media and you take the Tea Party citizens movement, you have a combination there that, quite frankly, 10 years ago, I wouldn't have had a chance.

It's time to get real, folks. Hope and change ain't working. Hope and change is not a solution. Hope and change is not a job.

Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.

Man's sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God.

Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.

A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.

God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light.

The good guys in my movies mind their own business, and they don't judge other people. And the bad guys are jealous; they judge other people without knowing the whole story. They want all the attention, and they're mean spirited.

Being a traditionalist, I'm a rabid sucker for Christmas. In July, I'm already worried that there are only 146 shopping days left.