“The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.”

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning – an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.

Thy fate is the common fate of all; Into each life some rain must fall.

By dropping golden beads near a snake, a crow once managed To have a passer-by kill the snake for the beads.

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.

Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.

In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer.

Method is more important than strength, when you wish to control your enemies.

Give what you have to somebody, it may be better than you think.

Sometimes we may learn more from a man’s errors, than from his virtues.

Look not mournfully into the past, it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present, it is thine.

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing.

Whenever nature leaves a hole in a person’s mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit.

For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.

The mind of the scholar, if he would leave it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds.

All things come round to him who will but wait.

With everything I do, I just try to be myself.

I’m at peace with myself. The main thing is not letting people dictate what I do or what I am.

My whole theory for the improvement of society is based on a belief in the discipline and the education of the individual to self-control and right doing, for the sake of right doing.

So that the thrifty and industrious have to pay for the shiftless ne’er-do-weels, then maybe, to save their lazy souls and get some iron into them, a war might be a good thing? Come on, now, tell your real middle name, Mong General!

The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.

When you got people behind you, you can do whatever.

I have my ups and my downs like anyone. All I can do is be me.

I like to sit on things and digest them and then I’ll figure out my next move, but I never said I was right for doing anything.