Echoes

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.

It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more.

The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.

Hope is the dream of a waking man.

Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, of sickness, or captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable; nor does it appear that the happiest lot of terrestrial existence can set us above the want of this general blessing; or that life, when the gifts of nature and of fortune are accumulated upon it, would not still be wretched, were it not elevated and delighted by the expectation of some new possession, of some enjoyment yet behind, by which the wish shall at last be satisfied, and the heart filled up to its utmost extent.

Don't judge the future of a person based on his present conditions, because time has the power to change black coal to shiny diamond.

Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.

While I breathe, I hope.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours ... In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving.

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement and success have no meaning.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many alms-houses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful; and do they use their best endeavours to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burthen? On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependence on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty.

The quality I look for most is optimism: especially optimism in the face of reverses and apparent defeat.

Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.