“It is so many years before one can believe enough in what one feels even to know what the feeling is.”

Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest soon topples down the hill.

What man does not understand, he fears; and what he fears, he tends to destroy.

I cast my heart into my rhymes, That you, in the dim coming times, May know how my heart went with them After the red-rose-bordered hem.

It takes more courage to dig deep in the dark corners of your own soul and the back alleys of your society than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield.

I believe that our memories are part of one great memory, the memory of Nature herself.

Hammer your thoughts into unity.

I heard the old, old, men say ‘all that’s beautiful drifts away, like the waters.’

We taste and feel and see the truth. We do not reason ourselves into it.

Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.

There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t yet met.

Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but there is no quiet in my heart.

I broke my heart in two So hard I struck. What matter? for I know That out of rock, Out of a desolate source, Love leaps upon its course.

The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write. I have always considered myself a voice of what I believe to be a greater renaissance – the revolt of the soul against the intellect.

Neither Christ nor Buddha nor Socrates wrote a book, for to do so is to exchange life for a logical process.

All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.

Teaching is not filling up a pail, it is lighting a fire.

I’ve always believed in the strength and resilience of the American people.

You cannot use someone else’s fire. You can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe that you have it.

I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day.

And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things they’ll never stop doing, I think it’s fearless to stop believing them. It’s fearless to say “you’re not sorry” and walk away.

I believe we have a responsibility to do even more. It’s so important that we’re changing.

I know you won’t believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.

What you do is proof of what you believe.

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.