I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
Do what you love. Know your own bone gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.
Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.
Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.
While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.
In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.
The law will never make a man free it is men who have got to make the law free.
Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.
I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.
Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.
All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.
In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.