The sun is but a morning star.
The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed.
It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit.
Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.
It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.
If you learn to practice love, compassion, joy, and equanimity, you will know how to heal the illnesses of anger, sorrow, insecurity, sadness, hatred, loneliness, and unhealthy attachments.
Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.
The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.
The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.
Man is the only animal which esteems itself rich in proportion to the number and voracity of its parasites.
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
We have more than we use.
No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.
The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.
The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
That which builds is better than that which is built.
