1. "Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity."
2. "After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books."
3. “Alas the fearful Unbelief is unbelief in yourself.”
4. “All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been, it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books. They are the choicest possessions of men.”
5. “A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.”
6. "A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things."
7. "A man perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared away, fair seed-fields rise instead, and stately cities; and with the man himself first ceases to be a jungle, and foul unwholesome desert thereby. The man is now a man."
8. “A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder.”
9. ”A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason.”
10. "A person with half volition goes backwards and forwards, but makes no progress on even the smoothest of roads."
11. "A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus."
12. “A poet without love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility.”
13. “A well-written life is almost as rare as well-spent one.”
14. "Clever men are good, but they are not the best."
15. "Conclusive facts are inseparable from inconclusive except by a head that already understands and knows."
16. "Culture is the process by which a person becomes all that they were created capable of being."
17. "Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer."
18. "Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone."
19. "Egotism is the source and summary of all faults and miseries."
20. ”Endurance is patience concentrated.”
21. "Even in the meanest sorts of labor, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony the instant he sets himself to work."
22. ”Every human being has a right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him. It is one of the Rights of Men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man!”
23. "Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one."
24. “Every noble work is at first impossible.”
25. "Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do."
26. “Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness on the confines of two everlasting hostile empires,—Necessity and Free Will.”
27. "Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death."
28. "For all right judgment of any man or things it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad."
29. “For love is ever the beginning of Knowledge, as fire is of light.”
30. “For the eye of the intellect "sees in all objects what it brought with it the means of seeing."”
31. "Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains."
32. “Genius … means the transcendent capacity of taking trouble.”
33. "Happy the people whose annals are blank in the history books!"
34. "Heroism is the divine relation which, in all times, unites a great man to other men."
35. “Hero-worship exists, has existed, and will forever exist, universally among Mankind.”
36. “He who has no vision of eternity has no hold on time.”
37. "He that can work is born to be king of something."
38. “High Air-castles are cunningly built of Words, the Words well bedded also in good Logic-mortar; wherein, however, no Knowledge will come to lodge.”
39. "History is the distillation of rumor."
40. “I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
41. “I don't pretend to understand the Universe--it's a great deal bigger than I am.”
42. “If a book come from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and authorcraft are of small amount to that.”
43. “If Hero means sincere man, why may not every one of us be a Hero?”
44. ”If I had my way, the world would hear a pretty stem command.”
45. “If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of him.”
46. "If time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated reading deserves to be read at all."
47. "If what you have done is unjust, you have not succeeded."
48. “I grow daily to honor facts more and more, and theory less and less.”
49. "I have seen gleams in the face and eyes of the man that have let you look into a higher country."
50. "Ill-health, of body or of mind, is defeat. Health alone is victory. Let all men, if they can manage it, contrive to be healthy!"
51. "Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding."
52. "Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere."
53. “In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.”
54. "In a symbol there is concealment and yet revelation: here therefore, by silence and by speech acting together, comes a double significance. In the symbol proper, what we can call a symbol, there is ever, more or less distinctly and directly, some embodiment and revelation of the Infinite; the Infinite is made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and as it were, attainable there. By symbols, accordingly, is man guided and commanded, made happy, made wretched."
55. “In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time: the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.”
56. “In every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing.”
57. “In idleness there is a perpetual despair.”
58. "In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment."
59. “In the poorest cottage are Books: is one Book, wherein for several thousands of years the spirit of man has found light, and nourishment, and an interpreting response to whatever is Deepest in him.”
60. ”It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the universe.”
61. "It is a strange trade that of advocacy. Your intellect, your highest heavenly gift is hung up in the shop window like a loaded pistol for sale."
62. “It is not a lucky word, this same impossible; no good comes of those that have it so often in their mouth.”
63. “It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe.”
64. ”It is the unseen and the spiritual in people that determines the outward and the actual.”
65. “Language is the Flesh-Garment, the Body, of Thought. I said that Imagination wove this Flesh-Garment; and does not she? Metaphors are her stuff: examine Language; what, if you except some few primitive elements (of natural sound), what is it all but Metaphors, recognized as such, or no longer recognized; still fluid and florid, or now solid-grown and colorless?”
66. "Laughter is the cipher key wherewith we decipher the whole man"
67. "Let one who wants to move and convince others, first be convinced and moved themselves. If a person speaks with genuine earnestness the thoughts, the emotion and the actual condition of their own heart, others will listen because we all are knit together by the tie of sympathy."
68. ”Let me have my own way in exactly everything, and a sunnier and pleasanter creature does not exist.”
69. “Let Time and Chance combine, combine!Let Time and Chance combine!The fairest love from heaven above,That love of yours was mine,My Dear!That love of yours was mine.”
70. "Life is a little gleam of time between two eternity s."
71. “Literature is the Thought of thinking Souls.”
72. “Love is ever the beginning of Knowledge as fire is of light.”
73. ”Love is not altogether a delirium, yet it has many points in common therewith.”
74. “Man's unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite.”
75. "Music is well said to be the speech of angels."
76. “My whinstone house my castle is;I have my own four walls.”
77. "Narrative is linear, but action has breadth and depth as well as height and is solid."
78. “Nature admits no lie.”
79. “Nay, in every epoch of the world, the great event, the parent of all others, is it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world?”
80. "No age seemed the age of romance to itself."
81. "No good book or good thing of any kind shows it best face at first. No the most common quality of in a true work of art that has excellence and depth, is that at first sight it produces a certain disappointment."
82. “No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, could ever compel the soul of man to believe or to disbelieve: it is his own indefeasible light, that judgment of his; he will reign and believe there by the grace of God alone!”
83. "No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence."
84. "No man sees far, most see no farther than their noses."
85. "No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad."
86. "No conquest can ever become permanent which does not show itself beneficial to the conquered as well as to the conquerors."
87. "No sooner is your ocean filled, than he grumbles that it might have been of better vintage. Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to quarrelling with the proprietor of the other half, and declares himself the most maltreated of men. Always there is a black spot in our sunshine: it is even as I said, the Shadow of Ourselves."
88. "Not brute force but only persuasion and faith are the kings of this world."
89. "Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight."
90. "Not our logical faculty, but our imaginative one is king over us. I might say, priest and prophet to lead us to heaven-ward, or magician and wizard to lead us hellward."
91. "Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom."
92. "Oh, give us the man who sings at his work."
93. “One life,—a little gleam of time between two Eternities.”
94. "One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO."
95. "Only the person of worth can recognize the worth in others."
96. ”Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.”
97. “Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”
98. "Our life is not really a mutual helpfulness; but rather, it's fair competition cloaked under due laws of war; it's a mutual hostility."
99. "Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what clearly lies at hand."
100. "Popular opinion is the greatest lie in the world."
101. "Reality, if rightly interpreted, is grander than fiction."
102. “Reform, like charity, must begin at home. Once well at home, how will it radiate outwards, irrepressible, into all that we touch and handle, speak and work; kindling ever new light by incalculable contagion; spreading, in geometric ratio, far and wide; doing good only, wherever it spreads, and notevil.”
103. "Science must have originated in the feeling that something was wrong."
104. "Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious."
105. "Show me the person you honor, for I know better by that the kind of person you are. For you show me what your idea of humanity is."
106. “Silence is deep as Eternity, speech is shallow as Time.”
107. “Silence is more eloquent than words.”
108. ”Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together.”
109. ”So here hath been dawning another blue day: Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away? Out of eternity this new day is born; Into eternity at night 'twill return.”
110. “Speech is too often not . . . the art of concealing Thought; but of quite stifling and suspending Thought.”
111. “Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether.”
112. "The actual well seen is ideal."
113. "The archenemy is the arch stupid!"
114. “The best effect of any book is that it excites the reader to self-activity.”
115. “The block of granite which is an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.”
116. "The condition of the most passionate enthusiast is to be preferred over the individual who, because of the fear of making a mistake, won't in the end affirm or deny anything."
117. “That there should one man die ignorant who had capacity for knowledge, this I call a tragedy.”
118. ”The deadliest sin were the consciousness of no sin.”
119. "The depth of our despair measures what capability and height of claim we have to hope."
120. "The eternal stars shine out as soon as it is dark enough."
121. “The eye of the intellect “sees in all objects what it brought with it the means of seeing.”
122. “The fine arts once divorcing themselves from truth are quite certain to fall mad, if they do not die.”
123. "The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then."
124. “The fraction of life can be increased in value not so much by increasing your numerator as by lessening your denominator. Nay, unless my Algebra deceives me, unity itself divided by zero will give infinity.”
125. “The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.”
126. “The great law of culture is: Let each become all that he was created capable of becoming.”
127. “The great silent men! Looking around on the noisy inanity of the world, words with little meaning, actions with little worth, one loves to reflect on the great Empire of Silence. The noble, silent men, scattered here and there, each in his department; silently thinking, silently working; whom no Morning Newspaper makes mention of! They are the salt of the Earth. A country that has none or few of these is in a bad way. Like a forest which had no roots; which had all turned into leaves and boughs; which must soon wither and be no forest.”
128. "The heart always sees before than the head can see."
129. "The hell of these days is the fear of not getting along, especially of not making money."
130. "The Hero can be Poet, Prophet, King, Priest or what you will, according to the kind of world he finds himself born into."
131. ”The illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb, for we have no word to speak about it.”
132. ”The king is the man who can.”
133. ”The merit of originality is not novelty, it is sincerity. The believing man is the original man; he believes for himself, not for another.”
134. "The most fearful unbelief is unbelief in your self."
135. "The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
136. "The person who cannot laugh is not only ready for treason, and deceptions, their whole life is already a treason and deception."
137. "The real use of gunpowder is to make all men tall."
138. “There is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of sort, rhymed or unrhymed.”
139. "There is often more spiritual force in a proverb than in whole philosophical systems."
140. "The soul gives unity to what it looks at with love."
141. "The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss."
142. ”The true past departs not, no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die; but all is still here, and, recognized or not, lives and works through endless change.”
143. “The true University of these days is a collection of books.”
144. “This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.”
145. "Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation, --till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another."
146. "Today is not yesterday: we ourselves change; how can our works and thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same? Change, indeed is painful; yet ever needful; and if memory have its force and worth, so also has hope."
147. “Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.”
148. "Variety is the condition of harmony."
149. ”Weak eyes are fondest of glittering objects.”
150. "We were wise indeed, could we discern truly the signs of our own time; and by knowledge of its wants and advantages, wisely adjust our own position in it. Let us, instead of gazing idly into the obscure distance, look calmly around us, for a little, on the perplexed scene where we stand. Perhaps, on a more serious inspection, something of its perplexity will disappear, some of its distinctive characters and deeper tendencies more clearly reveal themselves; whereby our own relations to it, our own true aims and endeavors in it, may also become clearer."
151. “What is philosophy but a continual battle against custom?”
152. "What we become depends on what we read after all the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is the collection of books."
153. “What you see, yet can not see over, is as good as infinite.”
154. "When we can drain the Ocean into mill-ponds, and bottle up the Force of Gravity, to be sold by retail, in gas jars; then may we hope to comprehend the infinitudes of man's soul under formulas of Profit and Loss; and rule over this too, as over a patent engine, by checks, and valves, and balances."
155. “Why did not somebody teach me the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are always overhead, and which I don't half know to this day?”
156. "Wonderful ''Force of Public Opinion!'' We must act and walk in all points as it prescribes; follow the traffic it bids us, realize the sum of money, the degree of ''influence'' it expects of us, or we shall be lightly esteemed; certain mouthfuls of articulate wind will be blown at us, and this what mortal courage can front?"
157. "Wonder is the basis of worship."
158. "Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and its power of endurance -- the cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it ;better, will preserve it longer, than the sad or sullen."
159. “Work is the grand cure for all maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind - honest work, which you intend getting done.”
160. “Worship of a hero is transcendent admiration of a great man.”
