“Involved sentences, crooked, circuitous, and parenthetical, no matter how musically they may be balanced, are prejudicial to a facile understanding of the truth.”

It is not what we read, but what we remember, that makes us learned. It is not what we intend, but what we do that makes us useful. It is not a few faint wishes, but a life long struggle, that makes us valiant.

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.

Walking humbly, you are more of a man than you were when you walked proudly.

I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.

You are not called to be a canary in a cage. You are called to be an eagle, and to fly sun to sun, over continents.

In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.

Laws and institutions, like clocks, must occasionally be cleaned, wound up, and set to true time.

Every young man would do well to remember that all successful business stands on the foundation of morality.

Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.

No emotion, any more than a wave, can long retain its own individual form.

Death is the Christian’s vacation morning. School is out. It is time to go home.

It will not do to be saints at meeting and sinners everywhere else.

Education is only like good culture,–it changes the size, but not the sort.

Laws are not masters but servants, and he rules them who obey them.

Faith is spiritualized imagination.

The advertisements in a newspaper are more full knowledge in respect to what is going on in a state or community than the editorial columns are.

In Africa people learn to serve each other. They live on credit balances of little favors that they give and may, one day, ask to have returned.

You’re always trying to balance your understanding of who you are and what you need, and your longing and imaginings of freedom.

The idea was to interpret science sensibly, with good proportion, good balance and good lighting, so we could understand it.

When I didn’t have a family, I was much more of a workaholic. I still like to work, but I also want to be home with them. As you get older, you realize you need balance. If it’s not fun, what’s the point?

I have been a little off balance since the day I met you. This is because I had never known what it is like to be perfectly aligned.

My parents showed me by example that they could balance their work and family lives.

Women and men grow up with both sexes. Our mothers and fathers mean a lot to us, so it’s just a question of finding a balance between their influences. I’ve found mine. And it tends to be more on the male side. I mean male side the way we understand it in the West.

The checks and balances is a way to prevent government from either devolving into an autocratic tyranny or an autocratic mob mentality.