“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.”

Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

Sorrow is the mere rust of the soul. Activity will cleanse and brighten it.

There must always be a struggle between a father and son, while one aims at power and the other at independence.

A man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments.

The Irish are a fair people: They never speak well of one another.

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven’t courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.

Each person’s work is always a portrait of himself.

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

Whatever enlarges hope will also exalt courage.

A man’s mind grows narrow in a narrow place.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.

Because we are separated everything separates us, even our efforts to join each other.

Nothing that is really good and admirable is granted by the gods to men without some effort and application.

The price of life is effort; the acme of effort is an accomplishment; the reward of accomplishment is joy.

Tools and instruments which can ease the effort of labor considerably are themselves not a product of labor but of work; they do not belong in the process of consumption but are part and parcel of the world of use objects.

The last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.

Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that the right thoughts and right efforts inevitably bring about the right results.

To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness.

Life is indistinguishable from effortful maintenance.