“Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.”
“Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.”
As quoted in "The Science of Second-Guessing", The New York Times (12 December 2004)
“The biggest coward of a man is to awaken the love of a woman without the intention of loving her.”
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
Variant: A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
“You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.”
Variant: You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice...
“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
Variant: I am not what happens to me. I choose who I become.
“If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.”
“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”
“Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”
As quoted in Mayor (1984) by Ed Koch
Attributed
“Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. LXVI
Following the Equator (1897)
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
“Do not take life too seriously – you will never get out of it alive.”
Source: A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), p. 74
“Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.”
Often attributed to Dr. Seuss without citation; also cited as an anonymous proverb.
This quote has also been attributed to Gabriel García Márquez, in Spanish: "No llores porque ya se terminó, sonríe porque sucedió."
Compare lines from In Memoriam A.H.H. of Tennyson:
  'Tis better to have loved and lost
  Than never to have loved at all.
Disputed
Variant: Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.
“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”
Source: Quoted in Man's Search for Meaning and attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche.
“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Ch. IX : Outdoors and Indoors, p. 336; the final statement "quoted by Squire Bill Widener" as well as variants of it, are often misattributed to Roosevelt himself.
Variant: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Attributed to Roosevelt in Conquering an Enemy Called Average (1996) by John L. Mason, Nugget # 8 : The Only Place to Start is Where You Are. <!-- The Military Quotation Book, Revised and Expanded: More than 1,200 of the Best Quotations About War, Leadership, Courage, Victory, and Defeat (2002) by James Charlton -->
Variant: Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.
Context: There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison. It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone; but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching. And as for a life deliberately devoted to pleasure as an end — why, the greatest happiness is the happiness that comes as a by-product of striving to do what must be done, even though sorrow is met in the doing. There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener's Valley, Virginia, which sums up one's duty in life: "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are."
