“There are seaons when our passions have slept so long that we know not whether they still exist in us. So does flax forget that it is combustible when the fire is away from it.”

There are some kinds of men who cannot pass their time alone; they are the flails of occupied people.There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate.

Like the withered roses of a once gay garland, the feelings of youth command in age a melancholy interest.

Partial culture runs to the ornate, extreme culture to simplicity.

To be without sympathy is to be alone in the world–without friends or country, home or kindred.

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.

When I go through the airport and see white women walking through the airport barefooted, like athlete’s feet don’t exist, there’s something wrong.

We must all learn a good lesson – how to live together. That is the new challenge of the new world, learning to co-exist and not co-annihilate.

The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.

Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you’re going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book.

To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is, the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself and enlarges the sphere of existence.

I am not made like any of those I have seen. I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different.

No doubt exists that all women are crazy; it’s only a question of degree.

To reduce the sum of our existence to a competitive struggle for advantage among more than two hundred nations is not clear-eyed but myopic. People and nations compete, but that is not all that they do.