Nature hates calculators.
As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues.
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem to be confidences or sides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profound thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.
No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.
We are as much informed of a writer’s genius by what he selects as by what he originates.
Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods loved him because men hated him.
We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.
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.
A man’s personal defects will commonly have with the rest of the world precisely that importance which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men.
Wake up, you’ve been sleeping. Take up your bed and walk. Stop blaming other people. Oh, it’s nobody else’s fault.
A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself.
That man is idle who can do something better.
I found you essay to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the part that was good was not original.
A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.
Do the thing we fear, and the death of fear is certain.
Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.
No God and no religion can survive ridicule. No political church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field, and live.
Nature has always had more force than education.
A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.
Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.
How does it happen, Maecenas, that no one is content with that lot of which he has chosen or which chance has thrown his way, but praises those who follow a different course?
Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.
