“Next to selfishness the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation.”

All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.

The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.

He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.

Solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society can ill do without.

The price paid for intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.

A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule.

The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.

Over one’s mind and over one’s body the individual is sovereign.

To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.

As often as a study is cultivated by narrow minds, they will draw from it narrow conclusions.

In the long-run, the best proof of a good character is good actions.

Cultivates the social virtues; and animates them by a great, a feasable, a speedy prospect of universal happiness,

A carefully cultivated heart will, assisted by the grace of God, foresee, forestall, or transform most of the painful situations before which others stand like helpless children saying “Why?

Instead of boiling up individuals into the species, I would draw a chalk circle round every individuality, and preach to it to keep within that, and preserve and cultivate its identity.

Cultivated people should be superior to any consideration so sordid as a mercenary interest.

When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited.

By consciously meditating upon spiritual truths and cultivating personal integrity, one need never fear negative circumstances.

We Russians have assigned ourselves no other task in life but the cultivation of our own personalities, and when we’re barely past childhood, we set to work to cultivate them, those unfortunate personalities.

Two forces are succesfully influencing the education of a cultivated man: art and science. Both are united in the book.