Never be so brief as to become obscure.
Appreciation, whether of nature, or books, or art, or men, depends very much on temperament. What is beauty or genius or greatness to one, is far from being so to another.
He that never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes, will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today.
To rejoice in another’s prosperity is to give content to your lot; to mitigate another’s grief is to alleviate or dispel your own.
The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers rather than to fill it with the accumulation of others.
Science has sometimes been said to be opposed to faith, and inconsistent with it. But all science, in fact, rests on a basis of faith, for it assumes the permanence and uniformity of natural laws – a thing which can never be demonstrated.
We should be as careful of the books we read, as of the company we keep. The dead very often have more power than the living.
To be good, we must do good; and by doing good we take a sure means of being good, as the use and exercise of the muscles increase their power.
Some men are born old, and some men never seem so. If we keep well and cheerful, we are always young and at last die in youth even when in years would count as old.
Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood.
Have a time and place for everything, and do everything in its time and place, and you will not only accomplish more, but have far more leisure than those who are always hurrying.
The slanderer and the assassin differ only in the weapon they use; with the one it is the dagger, with the other the tongue. The former is worse that the latter, for the last only kills the body, while the other murders the reputation.
Piety and morality are but the same spirit differently manifested. Piety is religion with its face toward God; morality is religion with its face toward the world.
To rule one’s anger is well; to prevent it is still better.
Contemplation is to knowledge what digestion is to food – the way to get life out of it.
Where duty is plain delay is both foolish and hazardous; where it is not, delay may be both wisdom and safety.
Common sense is, of all kinds, the most uncommon. It implies good judgment, sound discretion, and true and practical wisdom applied to common life.
Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power. A childlike and abiding trust in Providence is its best preventive and remedy.
There is often as much independence in not being led as in not being driven.
Nature hath nothing made so base, but can read some instruction to the wisest man.