“A fault which humbles a person is of more use to him or her than a good action which puffs him or her up.”

I have always in my own thought summed up individual liberty, and business liberty, and every other kind of liberty, in the phrase that is common in the sporting world, ‘A free field and no favor.’

I am sorry for men who do not read the Bible every day. I wonder why they deprive themselves of the strength and pleasure.

Work is the keystone of a perfect life. Work and trust in God.

I could see now that a literary education did not fit one for the popular novelist’s trade.Once you had started using words like flavicomous or acroamatic, because you liked the sound of them, you were lost.

When you have read the Bible, you will know it is the word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness and your own duty.

The great monopoly in this country is the money monopoly. So long as it exists, our old variety of freedom and individual energy of development are out of the question.

High society is for those who have stopped working and no longer have anything important to do.

Government ought to be all outside and no inside. Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety.

The whole purpose of democracy is that we may hold counsel with one another, so as not to depend upon the understanding of one man.

Character, my friends, is a byproduct. It is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.

We came to America, either ourselves or in the persons of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid of the things that divide and to make sure of the things that unite.

A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt.

Has justice ever grown in the soil of absolute power? Has not justice always come from the … heart and spirit of men who resist power?

To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fibre of national life.

At every crisis in one’s life, it is absolute salvation to have some sympathetic friend to whom you can think aloud without restraint or misgiving.

Any man that resists the present tides that run in the world, will find himself thrown upon a shore so high and barren that it will seem he has been separated from his human kind forever.

Besides entertainment and action, I want to educate. You know, as a producer or director, we do have a responsibility to society.

The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.

Aliveness doesn’t happen in silence. Aliveness doesn’t happen in repression. Aliveness happens in action.

The truth is – I found myself doing these huge action-adventure movies, and um, and which are cool man. And I really love doing them. And thankfully I haven’t had too much dialogue, because if I had I would have really made a mess of it. You know what I mean?

Almost every problem people face in their careers and other aspects of their lives – such as failed diets, marriages, and financial problems – are all the result of not taking enough action.

Prayer is the deliberate and persevering action of the soul. It is true and enduring, and full of grace. Prayer fastens the soul to God and makes it one with God’s will.

The words I speak, the things I do, let them be only, all for you.

The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.