The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it… Beware of me, it says, but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands.
How can what an Englishman believes be hearsay? It is a contradiction in terms.
To act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite human beings, Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive.
It was his peculiar happiness that he scarcely ever found a stranger whom he did not leave a friend; but it must likewise be added, that he had not often a friend long without obliging him to become a stranger.
Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.
The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.
There is nothing more distressing or tiresome than a writer standing in front of an audience and reading his work.
Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
Don’t think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles De Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.
While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?
Tear thyself from delay.
There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.
I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.
Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.
Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.
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.
You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.
I want to be all used up when I die.
Looking? Found someone you have, eh?
Justice is the insurance which we have on our lives and property. Obedience is the premium which we pay for it.
