The man who has done his level best, and who is conscious that he has done his best, is a success, even though the world may write him down as a failure. – B.C. Forbes
He who has faith has… an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well — even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly. – B.C. Forbes
The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure. – B.C. Forbes
An investigator starts research in a new field with faith, a foggy idea, and a few wild experiments. Eventually the interplay of negative and positive results guides the work. By the time the research is completed, he or she knows how it should have been started and conducted. – Donald Cram
There is a homely directness about these rustic apothegms which makes them far more palatable than the strained and sophisticated epigrams of the characters of Oscar Wilde’s plays, who are ever striving strenuously to dazzle us with verbal pyrotechnics. – Brander Matthews, “American Aphorisms,” Harper’s Magazine, November 1915,