Strong and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a stepmother, is sometimes a mother; privation gives birth to power of soul and mind; distress is the nurse of self-respect; misfortune is a good breast for great souls.
A tempest ceases, a cyclone passes over, a wind dies down, a broken mast can be replaced, a leak can be stopped, a fire extinguished, but what will become of this enormous brute of bronze?
True thinkers are characterized by a blending of clearness and mystery.
He who is not master of his own thoughts is not accountable for his own deeds.
The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor.
Knowledge is a weight added to conscience.
When we are at the end of life, to die means to go away; when we are at the beginning, to go away means to die.
There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think.
Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God.
Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.
The miserable’s name is Man; he is agonizing in all climes, and he is groaning in all languages.
Memory is a gulf that a word can move to its lowest depths.
Genius: the superhuman in man.
Slaves would be tyrants were the chance theirs.
Philosophy should be an energy; it should find its aim and its effect in the amelioration of mankind.
We teachers make the road, others will make the journey.
A day will come when markets, open to trade, and minds, open to ideas, will become the sole battlefield.
Where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incident, chaos will soon reign.
History has its truth; and so has legend hers.
Every bird which flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw. Germination includes the hatching of a meteor and the tap of a swallow’s bill breaking the egg, and it leads forward the birth of an earth-worm and the advent of Socrates.