“Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.”

The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.

The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted.

Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.

Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing.

Obedience, submission, discipline, courage–these are among the characteristics which make a man.

Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.

The duty of helping one’s self in the highest sense involves the helping of one’s neighbors.

Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man can clothe himself, the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired.

The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.

Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.

The brave man is an inspiration to the weak, and compels them, as it were, to follow him.

Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.

Any number of depraved units cannot form a great nation.

There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken.

The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. Win hearts, said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, and you have all men’s hearts and purses.

We have the DNA of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We play at the religious services of the new age. Everybody gets high, and that’s what it’s all about really.

I think the Muslim religious is a little too tight. It doesn’t fit humans. Humans can’t possibly fit into it, so there are a lot of really unhappy people, terribly repressed.

Father knew me not. All my aspirations in life were a sealed book to him, as much as his peculiar religious experiences were to me.

Music goes way back before language does. And music is like the key to a whole spiritual existence which this society doesn’t even talk about. We know it’s there.

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

I’m not a religious person. I have a one-on-one relationship with God, but I don’t go to church like I should.

I’m not the most religous person in the world, but I think the good Lord up there has blessed me.