We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light.
I want to be all used up when I die.
Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.
It is a brave thing to have courage to be an individual; it is also, perhaps, a lonely thing. But it is better than not being an individual, which is to be nobody at all.
Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.
The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.
Anger makes dull men witty – but it keeps them poor.
Ah! Sir, a boy’s being flogged is not so severe as a man’s having the hiss of the world against him.
Our best thoughts come from others.
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
All the sweetness of religion is conveyed to the world by the hands of story-tellers and image-makers. Without their fictions the truths of religion would for the multitude be neither intelligible nor even apprehensible; and the prophets would prophesy and the teachers teach in vain.
The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.
Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.
When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you not meet a friend.
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
The idea of perfection always gives one a chance to talk without knowing facts.
Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life…all of our life.
Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short, in all the management of human affairs.
In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.
The lofty pine is oftenest shaken by the winds; High towers fall with a heavier crash; And the lightning strikes the highest mountain.
Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.
