"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn."

"I am a lover of paradoxes."

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."

"Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preëxists in the means, the fruit in the seed."