All quotes

So, if you want to change the world, don’t back down from the sharks.

The power of one person — Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan, Malala — one person can change the world by giving people hope.

There are a lot of sharks in the world. If you hope to complete the swim you will have to deal with them.

We knew that if one man could rise above the misery then others could as well.

You can’t change the world alone — you will need some help — and to truly get from your starting point to your destination takes friends, colleagues, the good will of strangers and a strong coxswain to guide them.

Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence.

It asks a troublesome effort to ensure the admiration of others: it is a still greater one to be satisfied with one's own thoughts.

When he undertakes to play a part on the stage, and to persuade the world to think more about him than they do about themselves, he is got into a track where he will find nothing but briars and thorns, vexation and disappointment.

Even in the same family the gap is not so great; the wound closes up sooner than we should expect.

It is the pang of parting, the unloosing our grasp, the breaking asunder some strong tie, the leaving some cherished purpose unfulfilled, that creates the repugnance to go

Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end.

The love of life, then, is an habitual attachment, not an abstract principle.

The most rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of death is to set a just value on life.

There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern--why, then, should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?

Friendships are frequently taken up on some sudden sympathy, and we see only as much as we please of one another's characters afterwards.

It is in periods like this that it behooves the people to be most watchful of those to whom they have intrusted power.

Limited as are the powers which have been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute a despotism if concentrated in one of the departments.

Anyone who has taken the oath I have just taken must feel a heavy weight of responsibility.

These, then, are my last words to you: Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it.

A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.

Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.

First comes the very extremity of distress, then follows unexpected relief.

Most of us may learn to push the barrier farther off, and to live in perfect comfort on much higher levels of power.

The busiest man needs no more hours of rest than the idler.