Strong men greet war, tempest, hard times. They wish, as Pindar said, to tread the floors of hell, with necessities as hard as iron.
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, allennuis,vanish, - all duties even.
We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases.
A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.
This whole business of Trade gives me to pause and think, as it constitutes false relations between men; inasmuch as I am prone to count myself relieved of any responsibility to behave well and nobly to that person who I pay with money, whereas if I had not that commodity, I should be put on my good behavior in all companies, and man would be a benefactor to man, as being himself his only certificate that he had a right to those aids and services which each asked of the other.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.
Every man finds a sanction for his simplest claims and deeds, in decisions of his own mind, which he calls Truth and Holiness.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.
A man finds room in the few square inches of his face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.
There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud, you have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius.
To finish the moment, to find the journey?s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
The senses collect the surface facts of matter...It was sensation; when memory came, it was experience; when mind acted, it was knowledge; when mind acted on it as knowledge, it was thought.
A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.
All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Thoughts come into our minds by avenues which we never left open, and thoughts go out of our minds through avenues which we never voluntarily opened.
The finest and noblest ground on which people can live is truth; the real with the real; a ground on which nothing is assumed.
The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.
It is the privilege of any human work which is well done to invest the doer with a certain haughtiness.