"Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light."

"The day is ours, and what the day has shown."

"People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant."

"Once I knew only darkness and stillness... my life was without past or future... but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living."

"Believe. No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted island, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit."

"The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart."

"It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui."

"All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming."

"Tolerance is the greatest gift of the mind it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle."

"When the sun of consciousness first shone upon me, behold a miracle! The stock of my young life which had perished, steeped in the waters of knowledge grew again, budded again, was sweet again with the blossoms of childhood. Down in the depths of my being, I cried, 'it is good to be alive!' I held out two trembling hands to life, and in vain silence would impose dumbness upon me henceforth! The world to which I awoke was still mysterious; but there was hope and love and God in it, and nothing else mattered. Is it not possible that our entrance into heaven may be like this experience of mine?"

"I never fight except against difficulties."

"The fearful are caught as often as the bold."

"I thank God for my handicaps for through them I have found myself my work and my God."

"My share of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious."

"The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision."

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

"In a word, literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book-friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. The things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared with their "large loves and heavenly charities."

"Relationships are like Rome -- difficult to start out, incredible during the prosperity of the 'golden age', and unbearable during the fall. Then, a new kingdom will come along and the whole process will repeat itself until you come across a kingdom like Egypt... that thrives, and continues to flourish. This kingdom will become your best friend, your soul mate, and your love."

"Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged."

"Knowledge is love and light and vision."

"I realized that the wonder is not that conditions are so bad, but that humanity has advanced so far in spite of them. & now I am in the fight to change things. I may be a dreamer, but dreamers are necessary to make facts!"

"Great poetry needs no interpreter other than a responsive heart."

"Many scholars forget, it seems to me, that our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than upon our understanding. The trouble is that very few of their laborious explanations stick in the memory. The mind drops them as a branch drops its overripe fruit. ... Again and again I ask impatiently, "Why concern myself with these explanations and hypotheses?" They fly hither and thither in my thought like blind birds beating the air with ineffectual wings. I do not mean to object to a thorough knowledge of the famous works we read. I object only to the interminable comments and bewildering criticisms that teach but one thing: there are as many opinions as there are men."

"Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content."

"There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark."

"The world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of the heroes but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker."

"Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in and the great ship tense and anxious groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began only I was without compass or sounding line and no way of knowing how near the harbor was. "Light! Give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul and rhe light of love shone on me in that very hour."

"As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill."

"Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties."

"The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse."

"La vie est une aventure audacieuse ou alors elle n'est rien."

"So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good."

"One painful duty fulfilled makes the next plainer and easier."

"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."

"For, after all, every one who wishes to gain true knowledge must climb the Hill Difficulty alone, and since there is no royal road to the summit, I must zigzag it in my own way. I slip back many times, I fall, I stand still, I run against the edge of hidden obstacles, I lose my temper and find it again and keep it better, I trudge on, I gain a little, I feel encouraged, I get more eager and climb higher and begin to see the widening horizon. Every struggle is a victory. One more effort and I reach the luminous cloud, the blue depths of the sky, the uplands of my desire."

"To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug."

"I believe in the immortality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings."

"Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye."

"The one I felt and still feel most is lack of time. I used to have time to think, to reflect, my mind and I. We would sit together of an evening and listen to the inner melodies of the spirit, which one hears only in leisure moments when the words ofsome loved poet touch a deep, sweet chord in the soul that until then had been silent. But in college there is no time to commune with one's thoughts. One goes to college to learn, it seems, not to think. When one enters the portals of learning, one leaves the dearest pleasures--solitude, books and imagination--outside with the whispering pines. I suppose I ought to find some comfort in the thought that I am laying up treasures for future enjoyment, but I am improvident enough to prefer present joy to hoarding riches against a rainy day."

"No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit."

"Our favourite amusement during that winter was tobogganing. In places the shore of the lake rises abruptly from the water's edge. Down these steep slopes we used to coast. We would get on our toboggan, a boy would give us a shove, and off we went! Plunging through drifts, leaping hollows, swooping down upon the lake, we would shoot across its gleaming surface to the opposite bank. What joy! What exhilarating madness! For one wild, glad moment we snapped the chain that binds us to earth, and joining hands with the winds we felt ourselves divine!"

"Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light."

"A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships."

"I have an unshakable belief that mankind's higher nature is on the whole still dormant. The greatest souls reveal excellencies of mind and heart which their lesser fellows possess-hidden, it is true, but there all the same."

"It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears."

"It has been said that life has treated me harshly; and sometimes I have complained in my heart because many pleasures of human experience have been withheld from me if much has been denied me, much, very much, has been given me."

"You will find a joy in overcoming obstacles."

"No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right."

"It is beyond a doubt that everyone should have time for some special delight, if only five minutes each day to seek out a lovely flower or cloud or star, or learn a verse to brighten another's dull task. What is the use of such terrible diligence as many tire themselves out with, if they always postpone their exchanges of smiles with Beauty and Joy to cling to irksome duties and relations?"

"I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."