“Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties.”

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.

What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn’t deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.

Power is gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent.

The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.

Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself.

Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may be properly charged with evil who refused to learn how he might prevent it.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society.

Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.

Confusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford and you are not that young anymore.

We cannot afford four more years of a president who rejects science.

You could afford your house without the government if it weren’t for the government.

Republican leadership has endless amounts of money for bloated military budgets and tax breaks for billionaires. But when working families need help, oh my God, we can’t afford it!

If you really want something , you can have it if you’re willing to pay the price. And the price means you have to work better and harder than the next guy.

So long as freedom from hunger is only half achieved, so long as two thirds of the nations have food deficits, no citizen, no nation can afford to be satisfied.

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

If you act like an adult when you’re a kid you can afford to act like a kid the rest of your life.