People are too prone to think that the actual is the limit of possibility. They believe that all that has been done is all that can be done.
Our worst foes are not belligerent circumstances, but wavering spirits.
Our worst foes are ignorance, poverty, and the unconscious cruelty of our commercial society.
Optimism, then, is a fact within my own heart. But as I look out upon life, my heart meets no contradiction. The outward world justifies my inward universe of good.
Optimism that does not count the cost is like a house builded on sand.
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.
Once it was necessary that the people should multiply and be fruitful, if the race was to survive. But now, to preserve the race, it is necessary that people hold back the power of propagation.
Not all the military poems that I have read have roused in me an heroic desire to welcome my brother home with a bullet in his heart.
No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.
No one knows better than I the bitter denials of life. But I have made my limitations tools of learning and true joy.
No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.
No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.
