Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.
Books take their place according to their specific gravity as surely as potatoes in a tub.
The first thing a great person does is make us realize the insignificance of circumstance.
We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten.
Is not, indeed, every man a student, and do not all things exist for the student's behoof?
Are you not scared by seeing that the gypsies are more attractive to us than the apostles?
Wise men read very sharply all of your private history in your look and gait and behavior.
Two sorts of writers possess genius: those who think, and those who cause others to think.
Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles.
The craft of the merchant is this bringing a thing where it abounds to where it is costly.
The worst of charity is that the lives you are asked to preserve are not worth preserving.
What is originality? It is being one's self, and reporting accurately what we see and are.
A great man will find a great subject, or which is the same thing, make any subject great.
How we hate this solemn Ego that accompanies the learned, like a double, wherever he goes.
A poem is made up of thoughts, each of which filled the whole sky of the poet in its turn.
In all my lectures, I have taught one doctrine, namely, the infinitude of the private man.
Better reality than a dream: if something is real, then it's real and you're not to blame.
It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.
It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.
One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: ‘To rise above little things’.
The spirit of man can endure only so much and when it is broken only a miracle can mend it.
I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.
I think that in a lot of readers' minds the essay is a lot more utilitarian than it is art.
Faith is kept alive in us, and gathers strength, more from practice than from speculations.
Honor's a fine imaginary notion, that draws in raw and unexperienced men to real mischiefs.
One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.
Religion is 'twixt God and my own soul, Nor saint, nor sage, can boundless thought control.
A skilful man reads his dreams for his selfknowledge; yet not the details, but the quality.
Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners.
In the last analysis, love is only the reflection of a man's own worthiness from other men.
Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.
You have a place to live in this world which no other man can occupy; hence no competitors.
We dare not trust our wit for making our house pleasant to our friend, so we buy ice cream.
It is one light which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates all men.
We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it.
As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.
Far off, men swell, bully, and threaten; bring them hand to hand, and they are feeble folk.
A man is not to aim at innocence, any more than he is to aim at hair, but he is to keep it.
Friendship is an order of nobility; from its revelations we come more worthily into nature.
We know that madness belongs to love,--what power to paint a vile object in hues of heaven.
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible.
Fashion which affects to be honor, is often, in all men's experience, only a ballroom-code.
I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart apoints.
Women have a less accurate measure of time than men; there is a clock in Adam, none in Eve.
Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.
Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely.
Sometimes we receive the power to say yes to life. Then peace enters us and makes us whole.
Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough for literature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets, envies and hatreds of his competitors.