Cunning is strength withheld.

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity,―expensive races,―race living at the expense of race.

There is no knowledge that is not power.

Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience...

Envy is ignorance, Imitation is Suicide.

Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us...

When we are young, we spend much time and pains in filling our note-books with all definitions of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, in the hope that, in the course of a few years, we...

Art is the path of the creator to his work.

A friend may be nature’s most magnificent creation.

The sky is less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population.

The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly.

It came into him life, it went out from him truth. It came to him short-lived actions; it went from him poetry. It was a dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It can stand,...

Some of your grief you have cured, and lived to survive; but what torments of pain have you endured that haven’t as yet arrived.

We fly to beauty as an asylum from the terrors of finite nature.

In nature nothing can be given. All things are sold.

If you would rule the world quietly, you must keep it amused

Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long that they have come to esteem the religious, learned and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they...

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that...

The South-wind bringsLife, sunshine and desire,And on every mount and meadowBreathes aromatic fire;But over the dead he has no power,The lost, the lost, he cannot restore;And, looking over the hills, I mournThe darling who shall...

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every...

An Eastern poet, Ali Ben Abu Taleb, writes with sad truth, —”He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,And he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.

Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance...

Every natural action is graceful.

Every industrious man, in every lawful calling, is a useful man. And one principal reason why men are so often useless is that they neglect their own profession or calling, and divide and shift their...

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

A great man is always willing to be little.

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

The excellent is new forever.

Thou art to me a delicious torment.

Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.

The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.

Language is fossil poetry

The music that can deepest reach, And cure all ill, is cordial speech

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

Every man has his own vocation, talent is the call.

If a man carefully examines his thoughts he will be surprised to find how much he lives in the future. His well-being is always ahead. Such a creature is probably immortal.

Nature hates calculators.

He thought it happier to be dead, to die for beauty, than live for bread

Life is a festival only to the wise.

No man acquires property without acquiring with it a little arithmetic also

God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please – you can never have both.

If you believe in fate, believe in it, at least, for your own good

It is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts.

America is another name for opportunity.

Most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means.

There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right.

As soon as there is life, there is danger

The power which resides in man is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

The Italians are fond of red clothes, peacock plumes, and embroidery; and I remember one rainy morning in the city of Palermo, the street was ablaze with scarlet umbrellas

The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He...