Anger is a brief lunacy.
The disgrace of others often keeps tender minds from vice.
In labouring to be concise, I become obscure.
He who would begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin.
Gold will be slave or master.
Fidelity is the sister of justice.
I hate the irreverent rabble and keep them far from me.
There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.
I’m only a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler.
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it – and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again – and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
We can’t plan life. All we can do is be available for it.
He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.
Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.
The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.
Passion is a sort of fever in the mind, which ever leaves us weaker than it found us.
The world will only, in the end, follow those who have despised as well as served it.
He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.
Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.
We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.
It is admirable to consider how many Millions of People come into, and go out of the World, Ignorant of themselves, and of the World they have lived in.
The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, unhonored, and unpaid task of observation. He is the world’s eye.
