A vow is a snare for sin.
You can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.
Happiness is not a state to arrive at, rather, a manner of traveling.
Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay to an author.
All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.
Piety practiced in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendor of beneficence.
My dear friend, clear your mind of cant [excessive thought]. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a man, Sir, I am your most humble servant. You are not his most humble servant. You may say, These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times. You don’t mind the times … You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in Society; but don’t think foolishly.
It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.
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.
As Love ought to bring them together, so it is the best Way to keep them well together.
See only that thou work and thou canst not escape the reward.
Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants.
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
The traveler that resolutely follows a rough and winding path will sooner reach the end of his journey than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hour of daylight in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages.
If people misunderstand you, do not worry…it is your voice that they hear, but what goes through their mind is…their own thoughts.
One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.
We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases.
Upon retiring, sleep as if you had entered your last sleep. Upon awakening, leave your bed behind you instantly as if you had cast away a pair of old shoes.
Every great movement must experience three stages ridicule, discussion, adoption.
Our virtues are dearer to us the more we have had to suffer for them. It is the same with our children. All profound affection entertains a sacrifice. Our thoughts are often worse than we are, just as they are often better.
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
