"The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks."

"Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience."

"All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning."

"There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted."

"It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it is more important to understand even the slang of today."

"It's too late to be studying Hebrew, it's more important to understand even the slang of today."

"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well."

"Politics is the gizzard of society full of gut and gravel."

"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves."

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."

"The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life."

"In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not neccessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do."

"There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dulness. I need only suggest what kind of sermons are still listened to in the most enlightened countries. There are such words as joy and sorrow, but they are only the burden of a psalm, sung with a nasal twang, while we believe in the ordinary and mean."

"There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be."

"It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes."

"The world is but a canvas for our imagination."

"What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives."

"Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure."

"Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them."

"Dreams are the touchstones of our character."

"I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run."

"Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances."

"What recommends commerce to me is its enterprise and bravery. It does not clasp its hands and pray to Jupiter."

"It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right."

"The ways by which you may get your money almost without exception lead downward. To have done anything by which you earn money 'merely' is to be truly idle or worse. If the labourer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself.. If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for.. You must get your living by loving."

"Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around."

"I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls."

"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong as when you find a trout in the milk."

"In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society."

"I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

"Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform."

"It is not all books that are as dull as their readers."

"That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest."

"The faultfinder will find faults even in paradise."

"Simplicity simplicity simplicity. I say let your affairs be as two or three and not a hundred or a thousand instead of a million count half a dozen and keep your accounts on your thumbnail."

"I suppose that I have not many months to live: but of course I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing."

"Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us."

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."

"On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world."

"Colour which is the poet's wealth is so expensive that most take to mere outline sketches and become men of science."

"My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before,-a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy."

"Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man."

"How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book."

"It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know."

"He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton, he who does not cannot be otherwise."

"A common and natural result of an undue respect of law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart."

"I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things."

"A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye, looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature."

"That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest."

"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run."