Citations

Life is a daring adventure or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.

They took away what should have been my eyes (but I remembered Milton's Paradise). They took away what should have been my ears, (Beethoven came and wiped away my tears) They took away what should have been my tongue, (but I had talked with god when I was young) He would not let them take away my soul, possessing that I still possess the whole.

If I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.

Although the world is very full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

On change: We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

On the "White Hurricane Storm" in November 1913 in Cleveland, Ohio: I knew it was storming before I was told. The rooms, the corridors, everywhere within this building vibrates with the power of the storm outside. The storm waves, like sound waves or the waves of the wireless, will not be denied by stone walls and plate glass windows.

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of it's heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.

I have always thought it would be a blessing if each person could be blind and deaf for a few days during his early adult life. Darkness would make him appreciate sight. Silence would teach him the joys of sound.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.