Fatigue makes cowards of us all.
You always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself.
The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.
Those who trust us educate us.
For most men, and most circumstances, pleasure –tangible material prosperity in this world -is the safest test of virtue. Progress has ever been through the pleasures rather than through the extreme sharp virtues, and the most virtuous have leaned to excess rather than to asceticism.
I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my fathers house to believe in democracy. Trust the peoplethat was his message.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.
Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.
Follow your own passion – not your parents’, not your teachers’- yours.
Nothing makes a man so selfish as work.
In sculpture did ever anybody call the Apollo a fancy piece? Or say of the Laocoon how it might be made different? A masterpiece of art has in the mind a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant or a crystal.
He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many fold in their passage; while they lie waiting for the gale.
Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.
In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.
The secret in education lies in respecting the student.
There are charms made only for distant admiration.
The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.
I have never felt that anything really mattered but knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could.
Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
