We are wiser than we know.
There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of wisdom.
Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.
Language is the archives of history.
There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every man’s title to fame.
Wherever there is power there is age.
Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success.
The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.
We women are always in danger of living too exclusively in the affections; and though our affections are perhaps the best gifts we have, we ought also to have our share of the more independent life — some joy in things for their own sake. It is piteous to see the helplessness of some sweet women when their affections are disappointed — because all their teaching has been, that they can only delight in study of any kind for the sake of a personal love. They have never contemplated an independent delight in ideas as an experience which they could confess without being laughed at. Yet surely women need this defense against passionate affliction even more than men.
Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.
I really do not see much use in exalting the humble and meek; they do not remain humble and meek long when they are exalted.
Our planet is being turned into a filthy and evil-smelling imperialist barrack.
What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.
If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sun beams and you will always look lovely!
The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.
Many might go to Heaven with half the labor they go to hell.
Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial.
The human soul, by once suffering as much as it is capable of, purchases a strange and terrible immunity to all the rest of life’s sorrows.
Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.
Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men’s manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.
Time is but the stream I go fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. It’s thin current slides away, but eternity remains.
We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.
