“Man is never perfect nor contented.”

It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it must be believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason.

We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.

So is man’s heart. The desire to perform a work which will endure, which will survive him, is the origin of his superiority over all other living creatures here below. It is this which has established his dominion, and this it is which justifies it, over all the world.

What darkness is to you is light is to me.

The Great Architect of the universe built it of good firm stuff.

The chance which now seems lost may present itself at the last moment.

As long as the heart beats, as long as body and soul keep together, I cannot admit that any creature endowed with a will has need to despair of life.

I am very bad at expressing tender sentiments. The very word ‘love’ frightens me.

The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the ‘Living Infinite.

Trains, like time and tide, stop for no one.

How many things have been denied one day, only to become realities the next!

In presence of Nature’s grand convulsions man is powerless.

Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.

And whichsoever way thou goest, may fortune follow.

We see that science is eminently perfectible, and that each theory has constantly to give way to a fresh one.

A scholar has to know a little of everything.

I feel like God put me here to help out with people’s soul, man. God put me here to help out with people’s soul, man.

If men possessed wisdom, which stands in the same relation to the form of man as the sight to the eye, they would not cause any injury to themselves or to others, for the knowledge of the truth removes hatred and quarrels, and prevents mutual injuries.

I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness, is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice. To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men!

Every time we sit at a table at night or in the morning to enjoy the fruits and grain and vegetables from our good earth, remember that they come from the work of men and women and children who have been exploited for generations.

When I was a boy, I was taught never to use insulting expressions like, ‘I’ve been gypped,’ or, ‘He welshed on the deal.’

A man could no longer be private and withdrawn. The world allows no hermits.

Things men have made with wakened hands, and put soft life into are awake through years with transferred touch, and go on glowing for long years.

The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.