In all things I would have the island of a man inviolate. Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all round Olympus. No degree of affection need invade this religion.
Let us learn to live coarsely, dress plainly, and lie hard. The least habit of dominion over the palate has certain good effects not easily estimated.
The reason of idleness and of crime is the deferring of our hopes. Whilst we are waiting, we beguile the time with jokes, with sleep, with eating, and with crimes.
Our moods do not believe in each other.
We are such lovers of self-reliance, that we excuse in a man many sins, if he will show us a complete satisfaction in his position, which asks no leave to be, of mine, or any man’s good opinion.
The rule for hospitality and Irish “help,” is, to have the same dinner every day throughout the year. At last, Mrs. O’Shaughnessylearns to cook it to a nicety, the host learns to carve it, and the guests are well served.
The maxim of courts is that manner is power.
You cannot give anything to a magnanimous person. After you have served him, he at once puts you in debt by his magnanimity.
The good judge is not he who does hair-splitting justice to every allegation, but who, aiming at substantial justice, rules something intelligible of the guidance of suitors.
The conservative assumes sickness as a necessity, and his social frame is a hospital, his total legislation is for the present distress, a universe in slippers and flannels, with bib and papspoon, swallowing pills and herb-tea.
Teaching is the perpetual end and office of all things. Teaching, instruction is the main design that shines through the sky and earth.
We must leave our pets at home, when we go into the street, and meet men on broad grounds of good meaning and good sense.
There is no event greater in life than the appearance of new persons about our hearth, except it be the progress of the characterwhich draws them.
In good company, the individuals merge their egotism into a social soul exactly co-extensive with the several consciousnesses there present.
Religious literature has eminent examples, and if we run over our private list of poets, critics, philanthropists and philosophers, we shall find them infected with this dropsy and elephantiasis, which we ought to have tapped.
Egotism is a kind of buckram that gives momentary strength and concentration to men, and seems to be much used in Nature for fabrics in which local and spasmodic energy is required.
The public values the invention more than the inventor does. The inventor knows there is much more and better where this came from.
These arts open great gates of a future, promising to make the world plastic and to lift human life out of its beggary to a god- like ease and power.
Be a gift and a benediction.
Whilst we want cities as the centres where the best things are found, cities degrade us by magnifying trifles.