People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

I wish that life should not be cheap, but sacred. I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant.

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

Bad times have a scientific value. [...] We learn geology the morning after the earthquake, on ghastly diagrams of cloven mountains, upheaved plains, and the dry bed of the sea.

Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.

Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others, and this is a gift interred only by the self.

The highest compact we can make with our fellow, is, - "Let there be truth between us two forevermore".

Tis very certain that each man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the immense scale of men, and we are always learning to read it. A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.

England's genius filled all measure Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure, Gave to the mind its emperor, And life was larger than before: Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit. The men who lived with him became Poets, for the air was fame.

Nor mourn the unalterable Days That Genius goes and Folly stays.

Born for success he seemed, With grace to win, with heart to hold, With shining gifts that took all eyes.

Fear not, then, thou child infirm, There's no god dare wrong a worm.

He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread.

Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.

Deep in the man sits fast his fate To mould his fortunes, mean or great.

I think no virtue goes with size; The reason of all cowardice Is, that men are overgrown, And, to be valiant, must come down To the titmouse dimension.

United States! the ages plead, - Present and Past in under-song, - Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue.

The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in beasts, is a power behind the eye.

Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.

There are always two parties, the party of the Past and the party of the Future: the Establishment and the Movement. At times the resistance is reanimated, the schism runs under the world and appears in Literature, Philosophy, Church, State and social customs.

The young men were born with knives in their brain, a tendency to introversion, self-dissection, anatomizing of motives.

God said, I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more; Up to my ear the morning brings The outrage of the poor.

To-day unbind the captive, So only are ye unbound; Lift up a people from the dust, Trump of their rescue, sound!

None shall rule but the humble, And none but Toil shall have.

O tenderly the haughty day Fills his blue urn with fire; One morn is in the mighty heaven, And one in our desire.

For the prevision is allied Unto the thing so signified; Or say, the foresight that awaits Is the same Genius that creates.

I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. They have in themselves what they value in their horses, - mettle and bottom.

As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues.

All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.

That what we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.

Nature magically suits the man to his fortunes, by making these the fruit of his character.

In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin, - seven or eight ancestors at least, - and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is.

Whatever limits us we call Fate.

Men are what their mothers made them.

Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it.

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

A creative economy is the fuel of magnificence.

We may well call it black diamonds. Every basket is power and civilization. For coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself withersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power.

Wealth begins in a tight roof that keeps the rain and wind out; in a good pump that yields you plenty of sweet water; in two suits of clothes, so to change your dress when you are wet; in dry sticks to burn; in a good double-wick lamp; and three meals; in a horse, or a locomotive, to cross the land; in a boat to cross the sea; in tools to work with; in books to read; and so, in giving, on all sides, by tolls and auxiliaries, the greatest possible extension to our powers, as if it added feet, and hands, and eyes, and blood, length to the day, and knowledge, and good-will.Wealth begins with these articles of necessity.

The world is his, who has money to go over it.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to his opinion twenty years later.

I am not much an advocate for travelling, and I observe that men run away to other countries because they are not good in their own, and run back to their own because they pass for nothing in the new places. For the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have no task to keep you at home? I have been quoted as saying captious things about travel; but I mean to do justice. .... He that does not fill a place at home, cannot abroad. He only goes there to hide his insignificance in a larger crowd. You do not think you will find anything there which you have not seen at home? The stuff of all countries is just the same. Do you suppose there is any country where they do not scald milk-pans, and swaddle the infants, and burn the brushwood, and broil the fish? What is true anywhere is true everywhere. And let him go where he will, he can only find so much beauty or worth as he carries.

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend.

I have been quoted as saying captious things about travel; but I mean to do justice. I think, there is a restlessness in our people, which argues want of character. All educated Americans, first or last, go to Europe; - perhaps, because it is their mental home, as the invalid habits of this country might suggest. An eminent teacher of girls said, "the idea of a girl's education, is, whatever qualifies them for going to Europe." Can we never extract this tape-worm of Europe from the brain of our countrymen?

You can never do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do.