Every situation is an equilibrium of forces; every life is a struggle between opposing forces working within the limits of a certain equilibrium.
Thought is a kind of opium; it can intoxicate us, while still broad awake; it can make transparent the mountains and everything that exists.
Civilization is first of all a moral thing. Without truth, respect for duty, love of neighbor, and virtue, everything is destroyed. The morality of a society is alone the basis of civilization.
To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius.
Almost everything comes from almost nothing.
The test of every religious, political, or educational system, is the man which it forms. If a system injures the intelligence it is bad. If it injures the character it is vicious. If it injures the conscience it is criminal.
Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.
Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to our powers.
Great men are true men, the men in whom nature has succeeded. They are not extraordinary – they are in the true order. It is the other species of men who are not what they ought to be.
Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark.
Blessed be childhood, which brings down something of heaven into the midst of our rough earthliness.
Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one’s liberty.
Kindness is gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us.
Let mystery have its place in you ; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the ploughshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring...
We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to.
Time and space are fragments of the infinite for the use of finite creatures.
The great artist and thinker are the simplifiers.
A modest garden contains, for those who know how to look and to wait, more instruction than a library.
Will localizes us, thought universalizes us.
Charm is the quality in others that makes us more satisfied with ourselves.