The only sin that we never forgive in each other is a difference in opinion.
A great man stands on God. A small man on a great man.
Every individual strives to grow and exclude, to the extremities of the universe, and to impose the law of its being on every other creature.
When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will. His class is extinguished with him. In some other and quite different field, the next man will appear.
The most dangerous thing is illusion.
This very certain that each man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the immense scale of men, and we are always learning to read it. A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.
The victories of character are instant, and victories for all.
Greatness once and forever has down with opinion.
The greatest man in history was the poorest.
The wise man, the true friend, the finished character, we seek everywhere, and only find in fragments.
Repose and cheerfulness is the badge of the gentleman; repose in energy.
I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being well dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow.
Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-puller, but guiding, instructive, inspiring, a south wind, not an east wind.
Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is with-held, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.
The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances.
To believe in luck, if it were not a solecism so to use the word believe, is skepticism.
Experience is the only teacher, and we get his lesson indifferently in any school.
The finished man of the world must eat of every apple once.
All persons are puzzles until at last we find in some word or act the key to the man, to the woman; straightway all their past words and actions lie in light before us.
Moral qualities rule the world, but at short distances the senses are despotic.