We are wiser than we know.
Who can guess how much industry and providence and affection we have caught from the pantomime of brutes?
The virtue in most request is conformity.
I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.
We boast our emancipation from many superstitions; but if we have broken any idols, it is through a transfer of idolatry.
As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits, which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.
All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.
Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.
If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.
He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.
Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.
The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.
Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age.
A great man stands on God. A small man on a great man.
Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?
All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.
Wealth is in applications of mind to nature; and the art of getting rich consists not in industry, much less in saving, but in a better order, in timeliness, in being at the right spot.
The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.
Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.
I believe in Michelangelo, Velasquez, and Rembrandt; in the might of design, the mystery of color, the redemption of all things by Beauty everlasting, and the message of Art that has made these hands blessed. Amen. Amen.
Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.
