The first duty of man is that of subduing fear.
Is there no God, then, but at best an absentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first Sabbath, at the outside of his Universe?
I should say sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic.
No good book, or good thing of any sort, shows its best face at first.
First get an absolute conquest over thyself, and then thou wilt easily govern thy wife.
A conservative believes nothing should be done for the first time.
I find as I grow older that I love those most whom I loved first.
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
Agreeable society is the first essential in constituting the happiness and of course the value of our existence.
The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.
The happiness of the domestic fireside is the first boon of Heaven; and it is well it is so, since it is that which is the lot of the mass of mankind.
Freedom, the first-born of science.
The moral sense is the first excellence of well-organized man.
My affections were first for my own country, then, generally, for all mankind.
The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived.
What do I mean by loving ourselves properly? I mean first of all, desiring to live, accepting life as a very great gift and a great good, not because of what it gives us, but because of what it enables us to give to others.
The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reason and analysis but first of all by living.
If we are to love sincerely, and with simplicity, we must first of all overcome the fear of not being loved.
We cannot find Him unless we know we need Him. We forget this need when we take a self-sufficient pleasure in our own good works. The poor and helpless are the first to find Him, Who came to seek and to save that which was lost.
Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.