I don't understand it all, but when heaven decides to invade earth, who are we to argue?

But for God...

The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be common, nor the common heroic.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears apples.

Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, all flock to their aid.

Self-reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God.

There are two laws discrete,Not reconciled—Law for man, and law for thing.

In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men-that is genius.

What you see is what it is!

You must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits.

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.