We are wiser than we know.
Every great achievement is the victory of a flaming heart.
Traveling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places.
Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.
Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.
Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men. There is something indescribably inspiriting and beautiful in the aspect of the forest skirting and occasionally jutting into the midst of new towns, which, like the sand-heaps of fresh fox-burrows, have sprung up in their midst. The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.
Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.
As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.
Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.
The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being?
Think ahead. Don’t let day-to-day operations drive out planning.
The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.
There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.
A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.
Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
No crime is so great as daring to excel.
I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to be quite true.
I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.
