Quotes to inspire and reflect

Let it judge that nothing is either bad or good which can happen equally to the bad man and the good. For that which happens equally to him who lives contrary to nature and to him who lives according to nature, is neither according to nature nor contrary to nature.

Life itself is the most wonderful fairytale of all.

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone.

There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.

By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.

How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?

The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

True heroism consists in being superior to the ills of life, in whatever shape they may challenge us to combat.

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

I claim to be no more than an average man with below average capabilities. I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have if he or she would put forth the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.

The wise only possess ideas; the greater part of mankind are possessed by them.

Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent ideals that is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.

There are only two ways to live your life. One as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.

Society is joint action and cooperation in which each participant sees the other partner’s success as a means for the attainment of his own.

The mind, ever the willing servant, will respond to boldness, for boldness, in effect, is a command to deliver mental resources.

The sages do not consider that making no mistakes is a blessing. They believe, rather, that the great virtue of man lies in his ability to correct his mistakes and continually make a new man of himself.

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellowmen; and along those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

I am a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let him down...

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

Men are apt to offend (‘tis true) where they find most goodness to forgive.

Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family; but to a solitary and an exile, his friends are everything.

Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.

Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offers us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.

I only know how true it is: that love is a chain of love, as nature is a chain of life.

A kiss makes the heart young again and wipes out the years.

Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance and love have no end.

Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.

Have no friends not equal to yourself.

Hatred does not cease in this world by hating, but by not hating; this is an eternal truth.

Love is the kind of illness that does not spare the intelligent or the dull.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, ‘I’m with you kid. Let’s go.

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.

Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none.

He who boasts of his ancestry is praising the deeds of another.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

The highest result of education is tolerance.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.

We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.

The best portion of a good man’s life is in his little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.

The best way to know God is to love many things.