“I do this to feign confidence, because the more I fake it, the more it's supposed to feel true.”

Salon.com column http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/waldman/2005/04/25/limon/index1.html

Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)

The Selected Poems of Robinson Jeffers, Stanford University Press (2001) ISBN 978-0804738903

Address before the Advertising Federation of America convention, Boston, Massachusetts (28 June 1965); published in the Congressional Record (7 July 1965) Vol. 111, Appendix, p. A3583
Context: I sleep each night a little better, a little more confidently, because Lyndon Johnson is my president. For I know he lives and thinks and works to make sure that for all America and indeed, the growing body of the free world, the morning shall always come.

Source: Handle with Care

The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1892), Part 1, Chapter 18: New Relations and Duties
1890s, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1892)
Context: It is not uncommon to charge slaves with great treachery toward each other, but I must say I never loved, esteemed, or confided in men more than I did in these. They were as true as steel, and no band of brothers could be more loving. There were no mean advantages taken of each other, as is sometimes the case where slaves are situated as we were, no tattling, no giving each other bad names to Mr. Freeland, and no elevating one at the expense of the other. We never undertook to do any thing of any importance which was likely to affect each other, without mutual consultation. We were generally a unit, and moved together. Thoughts and sentiments were exchanged between us which might well be called incendiary had they been known by our masters.

On receiving Congressional Medal for Distinguished Civilian Achievement (23 April 1956); several variations of this personal motto are often quoted, including:
The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.
As quoted in 50 American Heroes Every Kid Should Meet! (2001) by Dennis Denenberg and Lorraine Roscoe, p. 99
I feel that the greatest reward for success is the opportunity to do more.

Letter to Coleridge (September 27, 1796), after the death of Lamb's mother.