“Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.”

You will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your Vision, your Ideal.

A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master gardener of his soul, the director of his life.

The act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits.

So you will be what you will to be.

Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit.

The price of life is effort; the acme of effort is an accomplishment; the reward of accomplishment is joy.

To desire is to obtain to aspire is to achieve.

A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth.

Doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge, and he who encourages them, who does not slay them, thwarts himself at every step.

There is an unavoidable tendency to become literally the embodiment of that quality upon which one most constantly thinks.

Such is the conscious master, and man can only thus become by discovering within himself the laws of thought; which discovery is totally a matter of application, self-analysis, and experience.

The world steps aside for the man who knows where he is going.

Man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild.

No man is hindered by another; he is only hindered by himself. No man suffers because of another; he suffers only because of himself.

Unrest and pain and sorrow are the shadows of life.

Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power.

It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions.

Nothing perhaps affects man’s character more than the company he keeps

You can’t just pretend that the things you watch, and the things you hear, and the places you go will not have an impact on your character. They will.

The only problems I’ve ever had with being honest is telling people how I feel about them or saying how I feel about other people.

Your character defects are not where you’re bad, but where you’re wounded. But no matter who or what causes the wound, it’s yours now and you’re responsible for it.

One characteristic of winners is they always look upon themselves as a do it yourself project.

Find better company, find company of people better than yourself so you be surrounded with those best in character and so you may learn something.

The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust — not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.