“Meanness is more in half-doing than in omitting acts of generosity.”

Be yourself and think for yourself, and while your conclusions may not be infallible they will be nearer right than the inclusions forced upon you by those who have a personal interest in keeping you in ignorance.

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

Reason: The arithmetic of the emotions.

We will not be dictated to by men with less intelligence, energy, initiative and ambition than we ourselves possess.

What we call God’s justice is only man’s idea of what he would do if he were God.

If you have health, you probably will be happy, and if you have health and happiness, you have all the wealth you need, even if it is not all you want.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.

The secret of success is this: there is no secret of success.

The man who knows it can’t be done counts the risk, not the reward.

Formal religion was organized for slaves: it offered them consolation which earth did not provide.

All success consists in this: You are doing something for somebody – benefiting humanity – and the feeling of success comes from the consciousness of this.

Faith is the effort to believe what your common sense tells you is not true.

Of all the mental and physical polluters of life, nothing exercises such a poisonous effect as fear.

Anyone who idolizes you is going to hate you when he discovers that you are fallible. He never forgives. He has deceived himself, and he blames you for it.

A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the experience.

Art is both the taking and giving of beauty, the turning out to the light of the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit.

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.

Logic and cold reason are poor weapons to fight fear and distrust. Only faith and generosity can overcome them.

Lord, grant that anger or other bitterness does not reign over us, but that your grace, genuine kindness, loyalty, and every kind of friendliness, generosity, and gentleness may reign in us. Amen

In faith and hope the world will disagree, but all mankind’s concern is charity.

At the end of the day, you either want or you don’t want to know about it. It’s a mercy thing – you have to give back. However you do it, you have to give something back. You have to.

I know I could never forgive myself if I elected to live without humane purpose, without trying to help the poor and unfortunate, without recognizing that perhaps the purest joy in life comes with trying to help others.

My humanity, in common with all of God’s children, gives the greatest flight to my full range of my possibilities.