It has been a good world to me. I have always had more friends than I could count and more good fortune than I could measure. I have always got everything I wanted. When I couldn’t get it, I didn’t want it, which is the same thing as having it. Sometimes it is better.
No, religion does not give—it does not promise a man immunity from misfortunes. Neither does an accident policy promise or protect the holder from a railway smash-up or an automobile accident. But it is a beautifully comforting thing to the insured while he’s in the hospital.
What you wish you were, that’s your ideal. What people say you are, that’s your reputation. What you know you are, that’s your character. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, you may fool some other people part of the time, but you can’t fool yourself a little bit of the time.
The heart always has ruled the world, and it always will. Love is the best teacher in the universe, because it is the most patient. The race of mankind is wise and strong, as it is today, only because ten thousand years of our stupidity, our obstinacy and our ingratitude haven’t wearied God.
If the uses of adversity are not sweet—and Paul says they are not—they are most efficacious. You have to hit a nail on the head half a dozen times before it will comprehend its perfect destiny. Well, God has to deal with some men—fellows like you and me—in the same manner, sometimes.