“Simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real.”

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.

The path of least resistance leads to crooked rivers and crooked men.

Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.

It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always.

The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend.

Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.

Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.

The heart is forever inexperienced.

Any fool can make a rule And any fool will mind it.

I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in it’s gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.

In the books I read the sinners are always more interesting than the saints, and in real life good people are dismally dull. I’ve no desire to be wicked, but I do want to be happy. A short life and a gay one for me and I’m willing to pay for my pleasure if it is necessary.

Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.

I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness – to save oneself trouble.

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

Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?

My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.

The modern man is necessarily a seeker of God, maybe a Man of Christ.

Civilization never recedes; the law of necessity ever forces it onwards.