The only compensation which war offers for its manifold mischiefs, is in the great personal qualities to which it gives scope and occasion.
Let not the tie be mercenary, though the service is measured in money. Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.
I take this evanescence and lubricity of all objects, which lets them slip through our fingers then when we clutch hardest, to be the most unhandsome part of our condition.
I find it a great and fatal difference whether I court the Muse, or the Muse courts me. That is the ugly disparity between age and youth.
Our prejudices are our robbers, they rob us valuable things in life. People only see what they are prepared to see.
Profound sincerity is the only basis of talent as of character.
The amount of a man’s wealth consists in the number of things he can do without.
I think no virtue goes with size.
When a man becomes a conformist, he is sacrificing the richness of independent thinking.
Real men don’t conform to the beliefs of others, even when society has concluded on what is good and true, but maintain the integrity of their own mind.
Every man has a choice between love of truth and love of repose. Love of repose brings him a solid reputation and peaceful life; love of truth keeps him in suspense. A man who loves truth respects the highest law of his being.
Some people are born very far from home.
But we need not fear that we can lose any thing by the progress of the soul. The soul may be trusted to the end.
A great teacher makes hard things easy.
Under every deep a lower deep opens.
He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser.
Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self.
First be a good animal.
The health of the eye demands a horizon.
A walk in the woods is only an exalted dream.