God, we are told, looked upon the world after he had created it and pronounced it good; but ascetic pietists, in their wisdom, cast their eyes over it, and substantially pronounce it a dead failure, a miserable production, a poor concern.
In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.
He that shrinks from the grave with too great a dread, has an invisible fear behind him pushing him into it.
Fortune, like a coy mistress, loves to yield her favors, though she makes us wrest them from her.
Besides the five senses, there is a sixth sense, of equal importance--the sense of duty.
I desire to go through life knowing as little of evil in it as possible. To this end, I sometimes avoid looking too closely into the nature of things, studying them only so far as they seem to be good, and abandoning interest in them as soon as their darker feature begin to appear. The good only deserves a hearty interest.
It is not the number of facts he knows, but how much of a fact he is himself, that proves the man.
To no circumstance is the wide diffusion of error in the world more owing than to our habit of adopting conclusions from insufficiently established data. An indispensable preliminary, then, in every investigation, is to get at facts. Until these are arrived at, every opinion, theory, or system, however ingeniously framed, must necessarily rest upon an uncertain basis.
The language denotes the man. A coarse or refined character finds its expression naturally in a coarse or refined phraseology.
All good writing leaves something unexpressed.
Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.
None but those who have loved can be supposed to understand the oratory of the eye, the mute eloquence of a look, or the conversational powers of the face. Love's sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric of words, and resorts to the pantomime of sighs and glances.
We cannot reason ourselves into love, nor can we reason ourselves out of it, which suggests that love and reason have little to do with each other.
Successful minds work like a gimlet--to a single point.
The busiest of living agents are certain dead men's thoughts.
Youth is the season of receptivity, and should be devoted to acquirement; and manhood of power--that demands an earnest application. Old age is for revision.
Our opinions partake, more or less, of the prejudices of our class, party, or sect. We are all largely pledged, through interest, affection, or passion, to particular classes of opinion, and the strength of efforts to get released from these pledges, is the measure of our advancement.
A man cannot paint portraits till he has seen faces.
Six traits of effective leaders: 1. Make others feel important 2. Promote a vision 3. Follow the golden rule 4. Admit mistakes 5. Criticize others only in private 6. Stay close to the action Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire.
Passion doesn't look beyond the moment of its existence.
The less the difference, the greater the quarrel over it.
We absolve a friend from gratitude when we remind him of a favor.
To cultivate a garden is to walk with God.
Qualities not regulated run into their opposites. Economy before competence is meanness after it. Therefore economy is for the poor; the rich may dispense with it.
To cultivate a garden is. . . to go hand in hand with Nature in some of her most beautiful processes, to learn something of her choicest secrets, and to have a more intelligent interest awakened in the beautiful order of her works elsewhere.
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