The quote database

You have summoned me in my weakness; you must sustain me by your strength.

One must subject oneself to one's own tests that one is destined for independence and command, and do so at the right time.

As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.

Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them.

There are times when the future seems thick as a fog; you sit and wait, hoping the mists will lift and reveal the right path.

it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.

A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.

The law, whether human or divine, is no respecter of persons; but the law is a respecter of reality.

Fully impressed with the gravity of the duties that confront me and mindful of my weakness, I should be appalled if it were my lot to bear unaided the responsibilities which await me.

Government has a right to survive and powers conferred upon it are not necessarily set at naught by the express prohibitions of the Bill of Rights.

One of the chief virtues of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected.

In this time of doubt, they look to the United States as never before for good will, strength, and wise leadership.

I accept with humility the honor which the American people have conferred upon me.

Joy deserted my heart, and for a long, long time I lived in doubt, anxiety and fear.

As I look back on my struggle to write that little story, it seems to me that I must have had a prophetic vision of the good that would come of the undertaking, or I should surely have failed.

Doubt and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend.

Optimism that does not count the cost is like a house builded on sand.

Courage returns as we gaze; when we see what has been, we doubt no more that it can be again.

Man is only what he becomes--profound truth; but he becomes only what he is, truth still more profound.

Nothing is more hidden from us than the illusion which lives with us day by day, and our greatest illusion is to believe that we are what we think ourselves to be.

Nothing is more characteristic of a man than the manner in which he behaves toward fools.

My saddest and most genuine sorrows are apt to be but transient regrets.

Methinks, if I loved him more, I should keep him--I should keep myself rather--at a more respectful distance.

Having treated my friend ill, I wished to apologize; but, not meeting him, I made an apology to myself.