“There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.”

They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.

Truth is in things, and not in words.

One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.

The most mighty of nature’s laws is this, that out of Death she brings Life.

The Past is the textbook of tyrants; the Future the Bible of the Free. Those who are solely governed by the Past stand like Lot’s wife, crystallized in the act of looking backward, and forever incapable of looking before.

All deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea, while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore.

Ladies are like creeds; if you cannot speak well of them, say nothing.

Better be an old maid, a woman with herself as a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one.

Honor lies in the mane of a horse.

The poor man wants many things; the covetous man, all.

There is nothing so slipperily alluring as sadness; we become sad in the first place by having nothing stirring to do; we continue in it, because we have found a snug sofa at last.

Yet habit – strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?

If you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.

Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that.

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.

And gentle winds and waters near, make music to the lonely ear.

May the ability to see many points view keep us gentle.

Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.

It is a gentle and affectionate thought, that in immeasurable height above us, at our first birth, the wreath of love was woven with sparkling stars for flowers.

Warriorship is so tender, without skin, without tissue, naked and raw. It is soft and gentle. You have renounced putting on a new suit of armor. You have renounced growing a thick, hard skin. You are willing to expose naked flesh, bone and marrow to the world.

In the garden of gentle sanity, May you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness.

Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.

You cross me, I’m going to hurt you. But I’m really very gentle.