writers-from-kentucky

"If we are disappointed that men give little heed to what we utter is it for their sake or our own?"

"Agitators and declaimers may heat the blood, but they do not illumine the mind."

"When with all thy heart thou strivest to live with truth and love, couldst thou do anything better? … If this be thy life, thou shalt not deem it a misfortune to lack the things men most crave and toil for."

"If thy friends tire of thee, remember that it is human to tire of everything."

"A Wise man knows that much of what he says and does is commonplace and trivial. His thoughts are not all solemn and sacred in his own eyes. He is able to laugh at himself and is not offended when others make him a subject whereon to exercise their wit."

"It is the expensiveness of our pleasures that makes the world poor and keeps us poor in ourselves. If we could but learn to find enjoyment in the things of the mind, the economic problems would solve themselves."

"Wouldst thou bestow some precious gift upon thy fellows, make thyself a noble man."

"It is a common error to imagine that to be stirring and voluble in a worthy cause is to be good and to do good."

"The value of a mind is measured by the nature of the objects it habitually contemplates. They whose thoughts are of trifles are trifling: they who dwell with what is eternally true, good and fair, are like unto God."

"They who think they know all, learn nothing."

"If the young are watched too closely, if they are kept habitually under surveillance, the spring of action is weakened, the power of initiative is destroyed, and they become mediocre, commonplace, mechanical men and women, from whom nothing excellent or distinguished may be expected. Parents and teachers … must so deal with the young as to bring them little by little under the control of reason and conscience; and in this, nothing thwarts more surely than excessive supervision, for it draws attention from the inner view and voice to the eyes of the watchers. It may cultivate a love of decency and propriety, but not the creative feeling that we live with God and that righteousness is life."

"The best money can procure for thee is freedom to live in thy true self. It is more apt however to enslave than to liberate. It is good also when thou makest it a means to help thy fellow men; but here too it is easier to harm than to benefit: for the money thou givest another is useful to him only when it stimulates him to self-activity."

"We are not masters of the truth which is borne in upon us: it overpowers us."

"What we think out for ourselves forms channels in which other thoughts will flow."

"Be content that others have position, if thou hast ability: that others have riches, if thou hast virtue."

"Each one fashions and bears his world with him, and that unless he himself become wise, strong and loving, no change in his circumstances can make him rich or free or happy."

"The world is chiefly a mental fact. From mind it receives the forms of time and space, the principle of casuality[sic], color, warmth, and beauty. Were there no mind, there would be no world."

"Faith, like love, unites; opinion, like hate, separates."

"However firmly thou holdest to thy opinions, if truth appears on the opposite side, throw down thy arms at once."

"The strong man is he who knows how and is able to become and be himself; the magnanimous man is he who, being strong, knows how and is able to issue forth from himself, as from a fortress, to guide, protect, encourage, and save others."

"If a state should pass laws forbidding its citizens to become wise and holy, it would be made a byword for all time. But this, in effect, is what our commercial, social, and political systems do. They compel the sacrifice of mental and moral power to money and dissipation."

"It is more profitable to be mindful of our own faults than of those of our age."

"Thy money, thy office, thy reputation are nothing; put away these phantom clothings, and stand like an athlete stripped for the battle."

"When the mind has grasped the matter, words come like flowers at the call of spring."

"It is unpleasant to turn back, though it be to take the right way."

"Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true."

"Taste, of which the proverb says there should be no dispute, is precisely the subject which needs discussion."

"God has not made a world which suits all; how shall a sane man expect to please all?"

"We have lost the old love of work, of work which kept itself company, which was fair weather and music in the heart, which found its reward in the doing, craving neither the flattery of vulgar eyes nor the gold of vulgar men."

"No sooner does a divine gift reveal itself in youth or maid than its market value becomes the decisive consideration, and the poor young creatures are offered for sale, as we might sell angels who had strayed among us."

"Passion is begotten of passion, and it easily happens, as with the children of great men, that the base is the offspring of the noble."

"The fields and the flowers and the beautiful faces are not ours, as the stars and the hills and the sunlight are not ours, but they give us fresh and happy thoughts.|"

"The zest of life lies in right doing, not in the garnered harvest."

"Few know the joys that spring from a disinterested curiosity. It is like a cheerful spirit that leads us through worlds filled with what is true and fair, which we admire and love because it is true and fair."

"It is held that one fulfils his whole duty when he is industrious in his business or vocation, observing also the decencies of domestic, civil, and religious life. But activity of this kind stirs only the surface of our being, leaving what is most divine to starve; and when it is made the one important thing, men lose sense for what is high and holy, and become commonplace, mechanical, and hard. Science is valuable for them as a means to comfort and wealth; morality, as an aid to success; religion, as an agent of social order. In their eyes those who devote themselves to ideal aims and ends are as foolish as the alchemists, since the only real world is that of business and politics, or of business simply, since politics is business."

"If we attempt to sink the soul in matter, its light is quenched."

"When we have not the strength or the courage to grasp a new truth, we persuade ourselves that it is not a truth at all."

"Drunkards and sensualists have become heroes and saints; but sluggards have never risen to the significance and worth of human beings. Sloth enfeebles the root of life, and degrades more surely, if less swiftly, than the sins of passion."

"The genius is childlike. Like children he looks into the world as into a new creation and finds there a perennial source of wonder and delight."

"We may outgrow the things of children, without acquiring sense and relish for those which become a man."

"The world is a mirror into which we look, and see our own image."

"The teacher does best, not when he explains, but when he impels his pupils to seek themselves the explanation."

"The doctrine of the utter vanity of life is a doctrine of despair, and life is hope."

"It is not difficult to grasp and express thoughts that float on the stream of current opinion: but to think and rightly utter what is permanently true and interesting, what shall appeal to the best minds a thousand years hence, as it appeals to them to-day,—this is the work of genius."

"The narrow-minded and petty sticklers for the formalities which hedge rank and office are the true vulgarians, however observant they be of etiquette."

"Beauty least adorned is most adorned"

"As our power over others increases, we become less free; for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants."

"Love finds us young and keeps us so: immortal himself, he permits not age to enter the hearts where he reigns."

"They who truly know have had to unlearn hardly less than they have had to learn."

"If thou need money, get it in an honest way—by keeping books, if thou wilt, but not by writing books."