"The highest strength is acquired not in overcoming the world, but in overcoming one’s self. Learn to be cruel to thyself, to withstand thy appetites, to bear thy sufferings, and thou shalt become free and able."

"The noblest are they who turning from the things the vulgar crave, seek the source of a blessed life in worlds to which the senses do not lead."

"If thy words are wise, they will not seem so to the foolish: if they are deep the shallow will not appreciate them. Think not highly of thyself, then, when thou art praised by many."

"Unless we consent to lack the common things which men call success, we shall hardly become heroes or saints, philosophers or poets."

"Great deeds and utterances are now so diluted with printer’s ink that we can no longer find a sage or saint. Our worthiest men are exhibited and bewritten until they are made as uninteresting as clowns."

"If truth make us not truthful, what service can it render us?"

"It is difficult to be sure of our friends, but it is possible to be certain of our loyalty to them."

"It is not worth while to consider whether a truth be useful—it is enough that it is a truth."

"Mercenary is whoever thinks less of his work than of the money he receives for doing it; and social conditions which impose tasks that make this inevitable are barbarous."

"No pure delight cheers the farmer whose mind is intent on the price he shall get for his crops rather than on the joy there is in tilling them and seeing them grow and ripen: for such an one does not love the land nor his home nor any of the most beautiful and sacred things, but tends to become like the brute that eats and sleeps and dies. His thoughts are with what feeds the animal, and that which nourishes the human is hidden from him."

"Say not thou lackest talent. What talent had any of the greatest, but passionate faith in the efficacy of work?"

"If we learn from those only, of whose lives and opinions we altogether approve, we shall have to turn from many of the highest and profoundest minds."

"Altruism is a barbarism. Love is the word."

"To how much lying, extravagance, hypocrisy and servilism does not the fear of ridicule lead? Human respect makes us cowards and slaves. It may deter from evil, but much oftener it drives to baseness. “We are too much afraid,” said Cato, “of death, exile and poverty.”"

"When we know and love the best we are content to lack the approval of the many."

"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."

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

"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 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."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

"Insight makes argument ridiculous."

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

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

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

"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."