“Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them.”

There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of consequences.

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

It will generally be found that men who are constantly lamenting their ill luck are only reaping the consequences of their own neglect, mismanagement, and improvidence, or want of application.

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual.

Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only.

Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life.

With will one can do anything.

When typhus or cholera breaks out, they tell us that Nobody is to blame. That terrible Nobody! How much he has to answer for. More mischief is done by Nobody than by all the world besides.

It is observed at sea that men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when there was nothing else to do, would issue the order to “scour the anchor.

The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.

If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.

It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.

The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.

The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.

Cecil’s dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, “The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.”

Alexander the Great valued learning so highly, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his father Philip for life.

Perhaps they are chasing an illusory dream. But if you want to learn, to expand, to be of service, you will find a way.

The time is just right to take risks and tell stories the way we want to tell them.

I am the way the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father but through me.

I studied the way I danced- to the point of dropping.

In the same way the lifted leg of an arabesque becomes a wing, and not a mechanical leverage like a raised trap door.

Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking.

The way things could be…and they should be, but they’re not.

It’s funny how the music industry is enraged about the Internet and the way things are copied without being paid for. But you know why people steal the music? Because they can’t afford the music.