Towering genius disdains a beaten path... It sees no distinction in adding story to story... It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it...

Towering genius distains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.

Amid the greatest difficulties of my Administration, when I could not see any other resort, I would place my whole reliance in God, knowing that all would go well, and that He would decide for the right.

August] 17th. [1859] At Cincinnati. This is the first time in my life that I have appeared before an audience in so great a city as this. I therefore--though I am no longer a young man-- make this appearance under some degree of embarrassment. But I have found that when one is embarrassed, usually the shortest way to get through with it is to quit talking or thinking about it, and go at something else.

In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

Foolish people spend time and money poring over horoscopes and consulting so-called psychics trying to see the dark unknown. How much better to walk through life holding the hand of One who knows the way and cares for us!

All men are more concerned to recover what they lose than to acquire what they lack.

Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.

Distress at losing an object can be as much a frustration at the intellectual mystery of the disappearance as about the loss itself.

we will never be faithful in the biblical sense if we never move from home base.

The Senator from Massachusetts has given us ample grounds to doubt the judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on vital issues of national security.

It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.