Mysteries are due to secrecy.
Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.
Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.
Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.
The correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors.
The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.
Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.
All those moments are alive in us today. We may not visit them anymore, very often, but we carry them in our DNA, our blood, our bones; informing the breadth and beauty of who we now are; our lesson to be lived.
One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself, and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.
Rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.
Liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery.
A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razor strap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.
Those that are little, little things suit.
What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.
A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out.
Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds. Each man seeks those of different quality from his own, and such as are good of their kind; that is, he seeks other men, and the rest.
The results of life are uncalculated and uncalculable. The years teach much which the days never know. The persons who compose our company, converse, and come and go, and design and execute many things, and somewhat comes of it all, but an unlooked for result. The individual is always mistaken. He designed many things, and drew in other persons as coadjutors, quarrelled with some or all, blundered much, and something is done; all are a little advanced, but the individual is always mistaken. It turns out somewhat new, and very unlike what he promised himself.
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.
Our strength grows out of our weakness.
I don’t do quagmires.
