Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.

Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with.

He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatness of the soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported without the latter.

We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.

None of us are responsible for all the things that happen to us, but we are responsible for the way we act when they do happen.

In activity we must find our joy as well as glory; and labor, like everything else that is good, is its own reward

I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.

If you have no friends to share or rejoice in your success in life - if you cannot look back to those whom you owe gratitude, or forward to those to whom you ought to afford protection, still it is no less incumbent on you to move steadily in the path of duty; for your active excretions are due not only to society; but in humble gratitude to the Being who made you a member of it, with powers to save yourself and others.

Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together.

Between eigtheen and twenty, life is like an exchange where one buys stocks, not with money, but with actions. Most men buy nothing.