“There are four questions of value in life... What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love. [from Don Juan DeMarco (1994)]”

“There is no better exercise for your heart than reaching down and helping to lift someone up.”

“Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.”

“One word or a pleasing smile is often enough to raise up a saddened and wounded soul.”

“Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again. ”

“Do all the good you can, and make as little fuss about it as possible.”

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. ”

“Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level.”

“As you put into practice the qualities of patience, punctuality, sincerity, and solicitude, you will have a better opinion of the world around you.”

“Whatever I am offered in devotion with a pure heart - a leaf, a flower, fruit, or water - I accept with joy.”

“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.”

“This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.”

“Learn to limit yourself; to content yourself with some definite work; dare to be what you are and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not; and to believe in your own individuality.”

“Among the qualities of mind and heart which conduce to worldly success, there is one, the importance of which is more real, and which is generally underrated in our day...It is courtesy.”

“Once in a young lifetime one should be allowed to have as much sweetness as one can possibly want and hold. ”

“None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.”

“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”

“Getting what you want is not nearly as important as giving what you have.”

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.”

“The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away.”

“One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.”

“A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside. ”

“The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.”

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

“You are the generation about to come into control and must prepare for this responsibility. Do not fill up your leisure with meaningless activity or with causes. Have the courage to stand aside and watch for a little while. It is more important to know where we are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement.”

“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.”

“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days . . .nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

“Everybody laughs the same in every language because laughter is a universal connection. ”

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”

“In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.”

“A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life.”