"We shrink from the contemplation of our dead bodies, forgetting that when dead they are no longer ours, and concern us as little as the hairs that have fallen from our heads."

"To think profoundly, to seek and speak truth, to love justice and denounce wrong is to draw upon one’s self the ill will of many."

"It is the business of culture to make us able to consider with intelligent interest all real opinions, even those we do not and can not accept."

"The test of the worth of a school is not the amount of knowledge it imparts, but the self-activity it calls forth."

"As a brave man goes into fire or flood or pestilence to save a human life, so a generous mind follows after truth and love, and is not frightened from the pursuit by danger or toil or obloquy."

"There is some lack either of sense or of character in one who becomes involved in difficulties with the worthless or the vicious."

"More inspiring and interesting teaching alone can make progress in education possible: for such teaching alone has power to produce greater self-activity, greater concentration of mind, greater desire to learn not only how to get a living, but how to live."

"Each individual bears within himself an ideal man, and to bring him forth in perfect form is his divinely imposed life-work."

"He who leaves school, knowing little, but with a longing for knowledge, will go farther than one who quits, knowing many things, but not caring to learn more."

"To think of education as a means of preserving institutions however excellent, is to have a superficial notion of its end and purpose, which is to mould and fashion men who are more than institutions, who create, outgrow, and re-create them."

"As we can not love what is hateful, let us accustom ourselves neither to think nor to speak of disagreeable things and persons."

"Folly will run its course and it is the part of wisdom not to take it too seriously."

"If our opinions rest upon solid ground, those who attack them do not make us angry, but themselves ridiculous."

"The disinterested love of truth which culture fosters is akin to the unselfishness which is a characteristic of the good."

"It is the tendency of the study of science to make us patient, humble and attentive to the smallest things. Is not this part of religion?"

"In giving us dominion over the animal kingdom God has signified His will that we subdue the beast within ourselves."

"What we enjoy, not what we possess, is ours, and in labouring for the possession of many things, we lose the power to enjoy the best."

"When the crowd acclaims its favorites it applauds itself."

"When one sense has been bribed the others readily bear false witness."

"The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue."

"A gentleman does not appear to know more or to be more than those with whom he is thrown into company."

"There are who mistake the spirit of pugnacity for the spirit of piety, and thus harbor a devil instead of an angel."

"Be watchful lest thou lose the power of desiring and loving what appeals to the soul—this is the miser’s curse—this the chain and ball the sensualist drags."

"It is a large part of learning to know what one wants, and where it may be found in its most authentic form."

"What we acquire with joy, we possess with indifference."

"A great man, who lives intimately with his admirers, with difficulty escapes being made ridiculous."

"Insight makes argument ridiculous."

"We truly know only what we have taught ourselves."

"The happiness of the ignorant is but an animal’s paradise."

"Reform the world within thyself, which is thy proper world."

"Base thy life on principle, not on rules."

"Culture makes the whole world our dwelling place; our palace in which we take our ease and find ourselves at one with all things."

"To secure approval one must remain within the bounds of conventional mediocrity. Whatever lies beyond, whether it be greater insight and virtue, or greater stolidity and vice, is condemned. The noblest men, like the worst criminals, have been done to death."

"Nothing requires so little mental effort as to narrate or follow a story. Hence everybody tells stories and the readers of stories outnumber all others."

"Not to be able to utter one’s thought without giving offence, is to lack culture."

"The pessimist writes over the gates of life what the poet has inscribed on the portals of hell—”Abandon hope, ye who enter here.”"

"When we have attained success, we see how inferior it is to the hope, yearning and enthusiasm with which we started forth in life’s morning."

"How is it possible not to strive to know what the awakening minds of the young are eager to learn from us? It is little less than criminal that we should put them off with foolish speech or lies."

"The smaller the company, the larger the conversation."

"The seeking for truth is better than its loveless possession."

"If ancient descent could confer nobility, the lower forms of life would possess it in a greater degree than man."

"What is greatly desired, but long deferred, gives little pleasure, when at length it is ours, for we have lived with it in imagination until we have grown weary of it, having ourselves, in the meanwhile, become other."

"The lover of education labors first of all to educate himself."

"The common prejudice against philosophy is the result of the incapacity of the multitude to deal with the highest problems."

"Dislike of another’s opinions and beliefs neither justifies our own nor makes us more certain of them: and to transfer the repugnance to the person himself is a mark of a vulgar mind."

"If thou canst not hold the golden mean, say and do too little rather than too much."

"The mind perceives … that it is higher than institutions, which are but the woof and web of its thought and will, which it weaves and outgrows, and weaves again."

"States of soul rightly expressed, as the poet expresses them in moments of pure inspiration, retain forever the power of creating like states. It is this that makes genuine literature a vital force."

"The power of free will is developed and confirmed by increasing the number of worthy motives which influence conduct."

"Philosophers and theologians, like the vulgar, prefer contradiction to enlightenment. They refute one another more gladly than they learn from one another, as though man lived by shunning error and not by loving truth. Accept their formulas and they sink back into their easy chairs and comfortably doze."