There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.
Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.
If a man will begin with certainties, he will end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he will end in certainties.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.
Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.
Publicity is a great purifier because it sets in action the forces of public opinion, and in this country public opinion controls the courses of the nation.
Separated lovers cheat absence by a thousand fancies which have their own reality. They are prevented from seeing one another and they cannot write; nevertheless they find countless mysterious ways of corresponding, by sending each other the song of birds, the scent of flowers, the laughter of children, the light of the sun, the sighing of the wind, and the gleam of the stars?all the beauties of creation.
No man is more unhappy than the one who is never in adversity; the greatest affliction of life is never to be afflicted.
Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.
There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.
A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.
Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your deity made you in his image, I reply that he must have been very ugly.
There is nothing true anywhere, The true is nowhere to be seen; If you say you see the true, This seeing is not the true one.
Avarice, the spur of industry, is so obstinate a passion, and works its way through so many real dangers and difficulties, that it is not likely to be scared by an imaginary danger, which is so small that it scarcely admits of calculation.
Where ambition can cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of passions.
There ambition can cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexibl eof passions.
Affection, like melancholy, magnifiestrifles; but the magnifying of the one is like looking through a telescope at heavenly objects; that of the other, like enlarging monsters with a microscop
The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.
Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.
I can sympathise with people's pains, but not with their pleasures. There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.
Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.
The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the nonintellectuals have never stirred.
The traveller's-eye view of men and women is not satisfying. A man might spend his life in trains and restaurants and know nothing of humanity at the end. To know, one must be an actor as well as a spectator.
My business is to teach my aspirations to confirm themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations.
If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?
Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.
The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us.
Happiness is not a reward-it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.
Surely every human being ought to attain to the dignity of the unit. Surely it is worth while to be one, and to feel that the census of the universe would be incomplete without counting you. Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and all depths; that there are no walls or fences, or prohibited places, or sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought; that your intellect owes no allegiance to any being, human or divine; that you hold all in fee, and upon no condition, and by no tenure, whatsoever; that in the world of mind you are relieved from all personal dictation, and from the ignorant tyranny of majorities. Surely it is worth something to feel that there are no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods, to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage. Surely it is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can devise no prison, no dungeon, no cell in which for one instant to confine a thought; that ideas cannot be dislocated by racks, nor crushed in iron boots, nor burned with fire. Surely it is sublime to think that the brain is a castle, and that within its curious bastions and winding halls the soul, in spite of all worlds and all beings, is the supreme sovereign of itself.
It is a blessed thing that in every age someone has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.
What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place.
A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smil
Marriage is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three.