The object of all life is development; and everything that lives has an inalienable right to all the development it is capable of attaining.
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The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself.
The world is advanced only by those who more than fill their present places.
You are to become a creator, not a competitor.
You can do what you want to do, and it is your right and privilege to follow the business or avocation which will be most congenial and pleasant.
Where there is great love there are always miracles.
The spirit of liberty is the sovereign balm for every injury which our institutions may receive.
Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives usually far within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use.
The transformation, moreover, is a chronic one: the new level of energy becomes permanent.
Arbitration is the true method of settlement of international as well as local or individual differences.
There are some national questions in the solution of which patriotism should exclude partisanship.
Thus worthy work carries with it the hope of pleasure in rest, the hope of the pleasure in our using what it makes, and the hope of pleasure in our daily creative skill.
When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves.
By holding the representative responsible only to the people, and exempting him from all other influences, we elevate the character of the constituent and quicken his sense of responsibility to his country.
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
Attribution contested
The letter opens by naming Paul and the catalogue records that, because it is the only claim the text itself makes. Authorship is disputed: on vocabulary, style and the situation it addresses, many scholars hold it was written in Paul's name by someone in his circle after his death. That was an ordinary practice at the time and is not the same thing as forgery — but it does mean the name on the letter is not settled.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Attribution contested
The letter opens by naming Paul and the catalogue records that, because it is the only claim the text itself makes. Authorship is disputed: on vocabulary, style and the situation it addresses, many scholars hold it was written in Paul's name by someone in his circle after his death. That was an ordinary practice at the time and is not the same thing as forgery — but it does mean the name on the letter is not settled.
I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.
Attribution contested
Circulated everywhere as if you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else, which appears in none of Washington's books, addresses or letters. This is the sentence in Up from Slavery it compresses. The paraphrase is not unfair, but it is not a quotation, and it drops the second half -- the claim that oppressing the unfortunate makes the oppressor weak -- which is the part he was actually arguing.
Yet is it far better to light the candle than to curse the darkness.
Wrongly attributed
Adlai Stevenson used a version of this in his eulogy for Eleanor Roosevelt in 1962, and it has been hers ever since; it is also sold as Confucius and as an old Chinese proverb. It is neither. It is W. L. Watkinson, the English Methodist preacher, in a sermon called The Invincible Strategy, printed in 1907 -- and he presents it as a saying already in circulation rather than as his own coinage. What is certain is that this is the earliest printed appearance anybody has produced, and it predates Roosevelt's public life.
the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor even touched, but just felt in the heart
Attribution contested
The words are Keller's, but two things in the popular version are not. The wording is smoothed -- it usually appears as they must be felt with the heart -- and, more importantly, Keller does not present the thought as her own: she writes that her teacher explained it to her. On her own account the sentence belongs at least as much to Anne Sullivan.