“A diary need not be a dreary chronicle of one’s movements; it should aim rather at giving salient account of some particular episode, a walk, a book, a conversation.”

People seldom refuse help, if one offers it in the right way.

Keeping up appearances is the most expensive thing in the world.

Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene.

I don’t like authority, at least I don’t like other people’s authority.

It is often wonderful how putting down on paper a clear statement of a case helps one to see, not perhaps the way out, but the way in.

A well begun is half ended.

I expect that all of us get pretty much what we deserve of appreciation.

Do you know the times when one seems to stick fast in circumstances like the fly in the jam-pot? It can’t be helped, and I suppose the best thing to do is to lay in a good store of jam!

The joy of all mysteries is the certainty which comes from their contemplation, that there are many doors yet for the soul to open on her upward and inward way.

I am sure it is one’s duty as a teacher to try to show boys that no opinions, no tastes, no emotions are worth much unless they are one’s own. I suffered acutely as a boy from the lack of being shown this.

Readjusting is a painful process, but most of us need it at one time or another.

The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and misfortunes, but its fears.

It seems sometimes as if one were powerless to do any more from within to overcome troubles, and that help must come from without.

The moment that any life, however good, stifles you, you may be sure it isn’t your real life.

Congenial labor is the secret of happiness.

The test of a good letter is a very simple one. If one seems to hear the other person talking as one reads, it is a good letter.

Educate yourself, hold the people around you accountable, seek ways to help, and don’t sit on the sidelines.

Sometimes you gotta take accountability for the way you feel no matter what a person puts you through.

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.

Money doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ve made a lot of money, but I want to enjoy life and not stress myself building my bank account.

Forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?

Pig power in America was infuriating, but pig power in the communist framework was awesome and unaccountable.

A girl is a good deed and a boy is a bounty. Good deeds are rewarded while people are held accountable for bounties.

We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.