I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.
No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow.
Pity the man who has a character to support – it is worse than a large family – he is silent poor indeed.
We falsely attribute to men a determined character – putting together all their yesterdays – and averaging them – we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support – it is worse than a large family – he is the silent poor indeed.
What can be expressed in words can be expressed in life.
We cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway of our virtue.
Shall I not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds?
I was determined to know beans.
The only wealth is life.
The way by which you may get money almost without exception leads downward.
Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it.
Invariably our best nights were those when it rained.
A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener.
If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.
The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.
Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage.
It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such.
The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed.
Why should we be startled by death? Life is a constant putting off of the mortal coil – coat, cuticle, flesh and bones, all old clothes.
As far back as I can remember I have unconsciously referred to the experiences of a previous state of existence.