Reality is a sliding door.
Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.
A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.
The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.
It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence, whether a man be behind it or no.
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men – that is genius.
All the great ages have been ages of belief.
He that does good for good’s sake seeks neither paradise nor reward, but he is sure of both in the end.
There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.
If a man will kick a fact out of the window, when he comes back he finds it again in the chimney corner.
You’ll never have a quiet world until you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
The chief mourner does not always attend the funeral.
Intellectual work is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward.
Plan backwards as well as forward. Set objectives and trace back to see how to achieve them. You may find that no path can get you there. Plan forward to see where your steps will take you, which may not be clear or intuitive.
I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.
Strivers achieve what dreamers believe.
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency, and qualifies all his qualifications, but who throws himself on your part so heartily, that he can get you out of a scrape.
He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.
Religion is as effectually destroyed by bigotry as by indifference.
It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
