“What we call conscience in many instances, is only a wholesome fear of the law.”

Excessive sensibility is only another name for morbid self-consciousness.

Enthusiasm is the inspiration of everything great. Without it no man is to be feared, and with it none despised.

The nearest approximation to an understanding of life is to feel it–to realize it to the full–to be a profound and inscrutable mystery.

Good men have the fewest fears. He has but one great fear who fears to do wrong; he has a thousand who has overcome it.

There will always be romance in the world so long as there are young hearts in it.

Fame – a few words upon a tombstone, and the truth of those not to be depended on.

Weakness ineffectually seeks to disguise itself,–like a drunken man trying to show how sober he is.

A great destiny needs a generous diet. What can be expected of a people that live on macaroni!

Dreamers are half-way men of thought, and men of thought are half-way men of action.

Too much society makes a man frivolous; too little, a savage.

An eager pursuit of fortune is inconsistent with a severe devotion to truth. The heart must grow tranquil before the thought can become searching.

Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.

The reveries of the dreamer advance his hopes, but not their realization. One good hour of earnest work is worth them all.

The beauty seen is partly in him who sees it.

Common sense, alas in spite of our educational institutions, is a rare commodity.

Marriage, by making us more contented, causes us often to be less enterprising.

Forget conventionalisms; forget what the world thinks of you stepping out of your place; think your best thoughts, speak your best words, work your best works, looking to your own conscience for approval.

Being tolerant does not mean that I share another one’s belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another one’s right to believe, and obey, his own conscience.

Nothing is likely to help a person overcome or endure troubles than the consciousness of having a task in life.

The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side, has a majority against the universe.

It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime.

Knowledge is a weight added to conscience.

When your intelligence don’t tell you something ain’t right, your conscience gives you a tap you on the shoulder and says ‘Hold on’. If it don’t, you’re a snake.

Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.