What,” I said, “in your estimation, is the greatest good a man can do?” ‘The greatest good he can do is to cultivate himself, develop his powers, in order that he may be of greater use to humanity.
Books make it possible for every person born into the world to begin where the previous generation left off.
Don’t think you have no chance in life because you have no capital to begin with. Most of the rich men of to-day began poor. The chances are you would be ruined if you had capital.
Let the adverse breath of criticism be to you only what the blast of the storm wind is to the eagle, – a force against him that lifts him higher.
The things that come from others correspond with what we send to them.
If you cannot at first control your anger, learn to control your tongue, which, like fire, is a good servant, but a hard master.
You must have birds in your heart, Madam, before you can find them in the bushes,” said John Burroughs, the great naturalist, to a woman who complained that no birds ever came to her orchard, while he counted a score or more there, even while she uttered her plaint.
SAVE. If you want to test a young man and ascertain whether nature made him for a king or a subject, give him a thousand dollars and see what he will do with it. If he is born to conquer and command, he will put it quietly away till he is ready to use it as opportunity offers. If he is born to serve, he will immediately begin to spend it in gratifying his ruling propensity. – Parton.
You have no more right to go about among your fellows with a vinegar expression an your face, radiating mental poison, spreading the germs of doubt, fear, discouragement and despondency among them, than you have to inflict bodily injuries on them.
It is in our non-producing moments that negatives, such as fear, worry, anxiety, hatred, and jealously get in their destructive work.
Better a cheap coffin and a plain funeral after a useful, unselfish life, than a grand mausoleum after a loveless, selfish life.
He who follows two hares is sure to catch.
Nature hates all botched and half-finished work, and will pronounce her curse upon it.
Laziness begins in cobwebs and ends in iron chains.
If I could give the young people... but one word of advice, it would be this – ‘Believe in yourself with all your might’. That is, believe that your destiny is inside you, that there is a power within you which if awakened, aroused, developed and matched with honest effort, will not only make a noble man or woman of you, but will also make you successful and happy.
Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; morals grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Cicero said: “Not to have a mania for buying, is to possess a revenue.” Many are carried away by the habit of bargain-buying. “Here’s something wonderfully cheap; let’s buy it.” “Have you any use for it?” “No, not at present; but it is sure to come in useful, some time.
Resolve that you will be the master and not the slave of circumstances.
The surest road to health, say what they will, Is never to suppose we shall be ill. Most of those evils we poor mortals know, From doctors and imagination flow.
The best legacy a man can leave his children is the memory and influence of a large, broad, finely developed mentality, a well-disciplined, highly cultured mind, a sweet, beautiful character which has enriched everybody who came in contact with it, a refined personality, a magnanimous spirit.