“It is the simple things of life that make living worthwhile, the sweet fundamental things such as love and duty, work and rest, and living close to nature.”

These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraphs and kerosene and coal stoves — they’re good to have but the trouble is, folks get to depend on ’em.

Vices are simply overworked virtues.

Remember well, and bear in mind, a constant friend is hard to find.

Remember me with smiles and laughter, for that is how I’ll remember you all. If you can only remember me with tears, then don’t remember me at all.

If the members of a home are ill-temperered and quarrelsome, how quickly you feel it when you enter the house. You may not know just what is wrong, but you wish to make your visit short.

We heap up around us things that we do not need as the crow makes piles of glittering pebbles.

Far worst of all, the fever had settled in Mary’s eyes, and Mary was blind.

This earthly life is a battle,’ said Ma. ‘If it isn’t one thing to contend with, it’s another. It always has been so, and it always will be. The sooner you make up your mind to that, the better off you are, and more thankful for your pleasures.

When Pa was at home the gun always lay across those two wooden hooks above the door. … The gun was always loaded, and always above the door so that Pa could get it quickly and easily, any time he needed a gun.

These happy golden years are passing by, these happy golden years.

Every job is good if you do your best and work hard. A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have nothing to do but smell.

Her blue eyes were still beautiful, but they did not know what was before them, and Mary herself could never look through them again to tell Laura what she was thinking without saying a word.

Many a good beginning makes a bad ending.

The wilderness needs your whole attention.

Wild animals would not stay in a country where there were so many people. Pa did not like to stay, either. He liked a country where the wild animals lived without being afraid.

It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.

Not everything in this life has a happy ending, but this life is not the end of the story.

Life begins now — right now — not tomorrow or the next day or the next. Every minute of every hour of every day, life begins anew. That means everything can change in an instant. It also means you can have a new beginning whenever you want.

The thing is, I live a very public life, and I have to keep things personal, or else I have no personal life. It’s very difficult.

The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.

Man the life of a workaholic.You either on ya work or just workin on it.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

We live only a few conscious decades, and we fret ourselves enough for several lifetimes.

Don’t let circumstances distress you. Rather, look for the will of God for your life to be revealed in and through those circumstances.