Nothing requires so little mental effort as to narrate or follow a story. Hence everybody tells stories and the readers of stories outnumber all others.
To cultivate the memory we should confide to it only what we understand and love: the rest is a useless burden; for simply to know by rote is not to know at all.
We are not masters of the truth which is borne in upon us: it overpowers us.
Passion is begotten of passion, and it easily happens, as with the children of great men, that the base is the offspring of the noble.
Thy money, thy office, thy reputation are nothing; put away these phantom clothings, and stand like an athlete stripped for the battle.
The important thing is how we know, not what or how much.
If we are disappointed that men give little heed to what we utter is it for their sake or our own?
The doctrine of the utter vanity of life is a doctrine of despair, and life is hope.
It is not difficult to grasp and express thoughts that float on the stream of current opinion: but to think and rightly utter what is permanently true and interesting, what shall appeal to the best minds a thousand years hence, as it appeals to them to-day, this is the work of genius.
The zest of life lies in right doing, not in the garnered harvest.
Whom little things occupy and keep busy, are little men.
Work, mental or manual, is the means whereby attention is compelled, it is the instrument of all knowledge and virtue, the root whence all excellence springs.
They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn.
Make thyself perfect; others, happy.
If thou wouldst be implacable, be so with thyself.
As our power over others increases, we become less free; for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants.
If thou need money, get it in an honest way by keeping books, if thou wilt, but not by writing books.
The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible.
It is unpleasant to turn back, though it be to take the right way.
When we have attained success, we see how inferior it is to the hope, yearning and enthusiasm with which we started forth in life's morning.
If a state should pass laws forbidding its citizens to become wise and holy, it would be made a byword for all time. But this, in effect, is what our commercial, social, and political systems do. They compel the sacrifice of mental and moral power to money and dissipation.
As the visit of one we love makes the whole day pleasant, so is it illumined and made fair by a brave and beautiful thought.
No sooner does a divine gift reveal itself in youth or maid than its market value becomes the decisive consideration, and the poor young creatures are offered for sale, as we might sell angels who had strayed among us.
The teacher does best, not when he explains, but when he impels his pupils to seek themselves the explanation.
Faith, like love, unites; opinion, like hate, separates.
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