“There are who mistake the spirit of pugnacity for the spirit of piety, and thus harbor a devil instead of an angel.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“A gentleman does not appear to know more or to be more than those with whom he is thrown into company.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“As we can not love what is hateful, let us accustom ourselves neither to think nor to speak of disagreeable things and persons.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“To think of education as a means of preserving institutions however excellent, is to have a superficial notion of its end and purpose, which is to mould and fashion men who are more than institutions, who create, outgrow, and re-create them.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“The aim of education is to strengthen and multiply the powers and activities of the mind rather than to increase its possessions.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“We have no sympathy with those who are controlled by ideas and passions which we neither understand nor feel. Thus they who live to satisfy the appetites do not believe it possible to live in and for the soul.”
“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.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“The more we live with what we imagine others think of us, the less we live with truth.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“If we are disappointed that men give little heed to what we utter is it for their sake or our own?”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“We are not masters of the truth which is borne in upon us: it overpowers us.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“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.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“Thy money, thy office, thy reputation are nothing; put away these phantom clothings, and stand like an athlete stripped for the battle.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“The important thing is how we know, not what or how much.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“The doctrine of the utter vanity of life is a doctrine of despair, and life is hope.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“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.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“The zest of life lies in right doing, not in the garnered harvest.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“When we have not the strength or the courage to grasp a new truth, we persuade ourselves that it is not a truth at all.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“Those subjects have the greatest educational value, which are richest in incentives to the noblest self-activity.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“The common man is impelled and controlled by interests; the superior, by ideas.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“The will the one thing it is most important to educate we neglect.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“If there are but few who interest thee, why shouldst thou be disappointed if but few find thee interesting?”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“We may avoid much disappointment and bitterness of soul by learning to understand how little necessary to our joy and peace are the things the multitude most desire and seek.”
“If thou wouldst be interesting, keep thy personality in the background, and be great and strong in and through thy subject.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“If thy words are wise, they will not seem so to the foolish: if they are deep the shallow will not appreciate them. Think not highly of thyself, then, when thou art praised by many.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“Unless we consent to lack the common things which men call success, we shall hardly become heroes or saints, philosophers or poets.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“When we know and love the best we are content to lack the approval of the many.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“If ancient descent could confer nobility, the lower forms of life would possess it in a greater degree than man.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“Base thy life on principle, not on rules.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“Reform the world within thyself, which is thy proper world.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“When one sense has been bribed the others readily bear false witness.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“He who leaves school, knowing little, but with a longing for knowledge, will go farther than one who quits, knowing many things, but not caring to learn more.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“Where it is the chief aim to teach many things, little education is given or received.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“In education, as in religion and love, compulsion thwarts the purpose for which it is employed.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“If we fail to interest, whether because we are dull and heavy, or because our hearers are so, we teach in vain.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“They whom trifles distract and nothing occupies are but children.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“If thy friends tire of thee, remember that it is human to tire of everything.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“What we think out for ourselves forms channels in which other thoughts will flow.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“It is a common error to imagine that to be stirring and voluble in a worthy cause is to be good and to do good.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“The world is chiefly a mental fact. From mind it receives the forms of time and space, the principle of casuality[sic], color, warmth, and beauty. Were there no mind, there would be no world.”
“It is unpleasant to turn back, though it be to take the right way.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“The writers who accomplish most are those who compel thought on the highest and most profoundly interesting subjects.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“If thou need money, get it in an honest way by keeping books, if thou wilt, but not by writing books.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“As our power over others increases, we become less free; for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“If thou wouldst be implacable, be so with thyself.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“Make thyself perfect; others, happy.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“Education would be a divine thing, if it did nothing more than help us to think and love great thoughts instead of little thoughts.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
“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.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion