The true artist has the planet for his pedestal; the adventurer, after years of strife, has nothing broader than his shoes.
The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.
Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.
Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.
No one ever became great by imitation.
The reason why men do not obey us is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.
To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do.
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
The Jews generally give value. They make you pay; but they deliver the goods. In my experience the men who want something for nothing are invariably Christians.
From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.
The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it.
Words are finite organs of the infinite mind. They cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth. They break, chop, and impoverish it.
He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.
Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Society is infested by persons who, seeing that the sentiments please, counterfeit the expression of them. These we call sentimentalists – talkers who mistake the description for the thing, saying for having.
What is read twice is usually remembered more than what is once written.
He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.
You must not only aim right, but draw the bow with all your might.
Intellectual work is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward.
Between his consciousness and events stood always that impenetrable medium – indifference.
Strivers achieve what dreamers believe.
