“Never,” said my aunt, “be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.”

New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colors of my life were changing.

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.

The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will.’ Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities.

Yes. He is quite a good fellow – nobody’s enemy but his own.

I am what you designed me to be. I am your blade. You cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt.

But the mere truth won’t do. You must have a lawyer.

Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.

We forge the chains we wear in life.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.

The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.

You have been the last dream of my soul.

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own.

There was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.

Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.

Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities.

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.

We must be willing to encounter darkness and despair when they come up and face them, over and over again if need be, without running away or numbing ourselves in the thousands of ways we conjure up to avoid the unavoidable.

There is magic in knocking down your most important domino day after day. All you have to do is avoid breaking the chain, one day at a time, until you generate a powerful new habit in your life.

He who avoids prayer is avoiding everything that is good.

Avoid the temptation to work so hard that there is no time left for serious thinking.

The central question of a warrior’s training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort.

To undertake a genuine spiritual path is not to avoid difficulties but to learn the art of making mistakes wakefully, to bring them to the transformative power of our heart.

Chasing unavailable people is a sneak way for the ego to avoid intimacy.

Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.