Revolutions go not backward.
Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world.
Sympathy is a supporting atmosphere, and in it we unfold easily and well.
That which we call character is a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means. It is conceived of as a certain undemonstrable force, a familiar or genius, by whose impulses the man is guided, but whose counsels he cannot impart.
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect.
Painting was called silent poetry and poetry speaking painting.
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
As long as I can conceive something better than myself I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it.
Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.
Always do what you are afraid to do.
You don’t learn to hold your own in the world by standing on guard, but by attacking and getting well hammered yourself.
Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.
Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.
Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.
The first farmer was the first man. All historic nobility rests on the possession and use of land.
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
Death then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live if we cannot bear to die.
I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
It’s them as take advantage that get advantage I this world.
The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.
