If time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all.
He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything
Every poet… finds himself born in the midst of prose. He has to struggle from the littleness and obstruction of an actual world into the freedom and infinitude of an ideal.
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 it.
The lies (Western slander) which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man (Muhammad) are disgraceful to ourselves only.
What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
(Quoted by Thomas Carlyle) The rude man requires only to see something going on. The man of more refinement must be made to feel. The man of complete refinement must be made to reflect.
Let each become all that he was created capable of being.
All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been; it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.
No magic Rune is stranger than a Book. All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lyingas in magic preservation in the pages of Books. They are the chosen possession of men.
Of all the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books.
History is the essence of innumerable biographies.
A Dandy is a clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing of clothes.
Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite.
To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.
I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
The word of Mohammad is a voice direct from nature’s own heart – all else is wind in comparison.
Well at ease are the Sleepers for whom Existence is a shallow Dream.
All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of Books. They are the chosen possession of men.
Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one less scoundrel in the world.
Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better.
Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see further.
Surely of all ‘rights of man’, this right of the ignorant man to be guided by the wiser, to be, gently or forcibly, held in the true course by him, is the indisputablest.
Of all the paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path .. A thing which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do .. To find this path, and walk in it, is the one thing needful for him.
Such I hold to be the genuine use of Gunpowder: that it makes all men tall.
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man, but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.
I’ve got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.
Of all your troubles, great and small, the greatest are the ones that don’t happen at all.
There are impertinent inquiries made; your rule is, to leave the inquirer uninformed on the matter; not, if you can help it, misinformed, but precisely as dark as he was!
Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of two everlasting empires, necessity and free will.
There is endless merit in a man’s knowing when to have done.
The block of granite which was an obstacle in the path of the weak becomes a steppingstone in the path of the strong.
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man but for one man who can stand prosperity there are a hundred that will stand adversity.
The eternal stars shine out as soon as it is dark enough.
If you can walk you can dance. Zimbabwe saying Music is well said to be the speech of angels.
Acorns are planted silently by some unnoticed breeze.
The true university of these days is a collection of books.
The three great elements of modern civilization Gunpowder Printing and the Protestant Religion.
The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently but to live manfully.
The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently but to live manfully.
Today is not yesterday 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.
It is the heart always that sees before the head can see.
Of all paths a man could strike into there is at any given moment a best path which here and now it were of all things wisest for him to do. To find this path and walk in it is the one thing needful for him.
Experience is the best of schoolmasters only the school-fees are heavy.
I grow daily to honor facts more and more and theory less and less.
Faith is loyalty to some inspired teacher some spiritual hero.
The greatest of faults I should say is to be conscious of none.
Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.
In the long run every government is the exact symbol of its people with their wisdom and unwisdom.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain tricks of custom: but of all these perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that the miraculous by simple repetition ceases to be miraculous.
Hero-worship exists has existed and will forever exist universally among mankind.
History is the essence of innumerable biographies.
Nine-tenths of the miseries and vices of mankind proceed from idleness.
It is the heart always that sees before the head can see.
Macaulay is well for awhile but one wouldn’t live under Niagara.
Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament but in the Reporters’ gallery yonder there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.
The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for treasons strategems and spoils but his whole life is already a treason and a stratagem.
The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer but rather what they miss.
Love is ever the beginning of Knowledge as fire is of light.
One life – a little gleam of Time between two Eternities.
We arc the miracle of miracles the great inscrutable mystery of God.
Here hath been dawning another blue day: think wilt thou let it slip useless away?
Who is there that in logical words can express the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate unfathomable speech which leads us to the edge of the Infinite and lets us for moments gaze into that!
When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with its fall but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.
Burke said there were three Estates in Parliament but in the reporters’ gallery yonder there sat a fourth Estate more important than them all.
Our grand business undoubtedly is not to see what lies dimly at a distance but to do what lies clearly at hand.
Time is the silent never-resting thing … rolling rushing on swift silent like an all-embracing oceantide on which we and all the universe swim.
Love is not altogether a delirium yet it has many points in common therewith.
The block of granite which was an obstacle in the path of the weak becomes a stepping stone in the path of the strong.
All work of man is as the swimmer’s: a vast ocean threatens to devour him if he front it not bravely it will keep its word.
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.
His religion at best is an anxious wish – like that of Rebelais a great Perhaps.
All reform except a moral one will prove unavailing.
Of all the paths a man could strike into there is at any given moment a best path … a thing which here and now it were of all things wisest for him to do … to find this path and walk in it is the one thing needful for him.
The great law of culture: Let each become all that he was created capable of being.
All work of man is as the swimmer’s: a vast ocean threatens to devour him if he front it not bravely it will keep its word.
Every noble crown is and on Earth will forever be a crown of thorns.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
Silence is deep as Eternity speech shallow as Time.
Skepticism means not intellectual doubt alone but moral doubt.
Every noble crown is and on earth will ever be a crown of thorns.
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man but for one man who can stand prosperity there are a hundred that will stand adversity.
Of a truth men are mystically united: a mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one.
The present is the living sum-total of the whole past.
A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work: it is as just a demand as governed men ever made of government.
All work is seed sown. It grows and spreads and sows itself anew.
Work is the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind.
The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.
Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.
True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt; its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.
Blessed is he who has found his work let him ask no other blessedness.
Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.
The old cathedrals are good, but the great blue dome that hangs over everything is better.
If you look deep enough you will see music the heart of nature being everywhere music.
Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.
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.
The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion.
Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.
There are good and bad times, but our mood changes more often than our fortune.
No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.
The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.
Not brute force but only persuasion and faith are the kings of this world.
Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.
Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.
In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.
Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.