Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical...

It is only when we forget our learning, do we begin to know.

si elle (la loi) est d’une telle nature qu’elle fasse de vous l’agent de l’injustice vis-à-vis d’autrui alors je déclare qu’il faut enfreindre la loi

It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience. But a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.

The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with here and there a...

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity...

There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dulness. I need only suggest what kind of sermons are still listened to in the most enlightened countries. There are...

So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be...

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts, -a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity,...

What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.

What is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance?

It is never too late to give up your prejudices

Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain-storms in the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and...

I am a happy camper so I guess I’m doing something right. Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to...

Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.

Friends… they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams.

I thus found that the student who wishes for a shelter can obtain one for a lifetime at an expense not greater than the rent which he now pays annually. If I seem to boast...

They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar

The fate of the country… does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street...

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive...

If a man does not keep pace with his companion, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.