“Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.”

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

Never take anything for granted.

Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.

Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard.

Fear makes us feel our humanity.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

Success is the child of audacity.

You can tell the strength of a nation by the women behind its men.

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.

There is no education like adversity.

There’s so much in the 21st century that is stymied by bureaucracy and mediocrity and committee.

Mediocrity is a hand-rail.

You have to believe that you are the one who creates your success, that you are the one who creates your mediocrity, and that you are the one creating your struggle around money and success.

The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it. We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and of how incomplete our lives remain.

Philadelphians are every whit as mediocre as their neighbors, but they seldom encourage each other in mediocrity by giving it a more agreeable name.

Love It, is to increase by forgetting. It’s escape through a single being to mediocrity of all other. It’s one more for trying to be less.

If an historian be an unbeliever in all heroism, if he be a man who brings every thing down to the level of a common mediocrity, depend upon it, the truth is not found in such a writer.

Anyone in any walk of life who is content with mediocrity is untrue to himself and to American tradition.