If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.
Youth gets together with their materials to build a bridge to the moon or maybe a palace on earth; then in middle age they decide to build a woodshed with them instead.
Henry David Thoreau
City life is millions of people being lonesome together.
Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring.
I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls.
The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.
As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course.
If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonal experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.
There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.
I heartily accept the motto,That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.
I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure.
Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.
Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction,a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse.
I lose my respect for the man who can make the mystery of sex the subject of a coarse jest, yet when you speak earnestly and seriously on the subject, is silent.
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.
Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the poet.
If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.
Human Dignity has gleamed only now and then and here and there, in lonely splendor, throughout the ages, a hope of the better men, never an achievement of the majority.
James Thurber
Discussion in America means dissent.
My drawings have been described as pre-internationalist, meaning that they were finished before the ideas for them had occurred to me. I shall not argue the point.
A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption.
There is this paradox in pride -- it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so.
Charles Caleb Colton
He that is good, will infallibly become better, and he that is bad, will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue and time are three things that never stand still.
There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.
There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.
The two most precious things this side of the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other.
The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.
Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by other men.
It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.
He that knows himself, knows others; and he that is ignorant of himself, could not write a very profound lecture on other men's heads.
Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.
Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.
They that are loudest in their threats are the weakest in the execution of them. It is probable that he who is killed by lightning hears no noise; but the thunder-clap which follows, and which most alarms the ignorant, is the surest proof of their safety.
Let me enjoy the earth no less Because the all-enacting MightThat fashioned forth its lovelinessHad other aims than my delight.
Thomas Hardy
The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Simplicity of character is no hindrance to subtlety of intellect.
John Morley, Life of Gladstone,
Literature, the most seductive, the most deceiving, the most dangerous of professions.
John Morley
Evolution is not a force but a process. Not a cause but a law.
The essence of morality is the subjugation of nature in obedience to social needs.
There is a perennial and unobtrusive view that morality consists in such things as telling the truth, paying one's debts, respecting one's parents and doing no voluntary harm to anyone. Those are all things easy to say and hard to do; they do not attract much attention, and win little honor in the world.
Allan Bloom
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