If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?
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.
I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.
There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.
The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.
It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.
It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart it being much more sensitive.
Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.
True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.
I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good be good for something.
There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.
There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.
Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.
There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.
Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.
There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.
A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.
Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.