"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."

"In the world of thought a man’s rank is determined, not by his average work, but by his highest achievement."

"The test of the worth of work is its effect on the worker. If it degrade him, it is bad; if it ennoble him, it is good."

"The multitude are matter-of-fact. They live in commonplace concerns and interests. Their problems are, how to get more plentiful and better food and drink, more comfortable and beautiful clothing, more commodious dwellings, for themselves and their children. When they seek relaxation from their labors for material things, they gossip of the daily happenings, or they play games or dance or go to the theatre or club, or they travel or they read story books, or accounts in the newspapers of elections, murders, peculations, marriages, divorces, failures and successes in business; or they simply sit in a kind of lethargy. They fall asleep and awake to tread again the beaten path. While such is their life, it is not possible that they should take interest or find pleasure in religion, poetry, philosophy, or art. To ask them to read books whose life-breath is pure thought and beauty is as though one asked them to read things written in a language they do not understand and have no desire to learn. A taste for the best books, as a taste for whatever is best, is acquired; and it can be acquired only by long study and practice. It is a result of free and disinterested self-activity, of efforts to attain what rarely brings other reward than the consciousness of having loved and striven for the best. But the many have little appreciation of what does not flatter or soothe the senses. Their world, like the world of children and animals, is good enough for them; meat and drink, dance and song, are worth more, in their eyes, than all the thoughts of all the literatures. A love tale is better than a great poem, and the story of a bandit makes Plutarch seem tiresome. This is what they think and feel, and what, so long as they remain what they are, they will continue to think and feel. We do not urge a child to read Plato—why should we find fault with the many for not loving the best books?"

"True readers … are ready to go through a whole volume, if there be but hope of finding in it a single genuine thought or the mere suggestion even of a truth which has some fresh application to life."

"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."

"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."

"The first requisite of a gentleman is to be true, brave and noble, and to be therefore a rebuke and scandal to venal and vulgar souls."

"If thou wouldst help others deal with them as though they were what they should be"

"What purifies the heart refines language."

"To love the perfection with which we do our work, or the company of those with whom we work, is the secret of learning to love the work itself."

"Moral education is the development of individuality, and individuality can not be developed by formulas and mechanical processes: it is the work of the master who brings to his task a genuine and loving interest in the individual."

"Work, mental or manual, is the means whereby attention is compelled, it is the instrument of all knowledge and virtue, the root whence all excellence springs."

"When pleasure is made a business, it ceases to be pleasure."

"Place before thyself the ideal of perfection, not that of happiness, for by doing what makes thee wiser and better, thou shalt find the peace and joy in which happiness consists."

"The will—the one thing it is most important to educate—we neglect."

"The common man is impelled and controlled by interests; the superior, by ideas."

"They who see through the eyes of others are controlled by the will of others."

"Solitude is unbearable for those who can not bear themselves."

"To view an object in the proper light we must stand away from it. The study of the classical literatures gives the aloofness which cultivates insight. In learning to live with peoples and civilizations that have long ceased to be alive, we gain a vantage point, acquire an enlargement and elevation of thought, which enable us to study with a more impartial and liberal mind the condition of the society around us."

"Rules of grammar can not give us a mastery of language, rules of rhetoric can not make us eloquent, rules of conduct can not make us good."

"Let not what thou canst not prevent, though it be the ruin of thy home or country, draw thee from thy proper work."

"Education would be a divine thing, if it did nothing more than help us to think and love great thoughts instead of little thoughts."

"They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn."

"What matter that the man stands for much I cannot love—the moment he touches the realms of truth he enters my world and is my friend."

"If thou hast sought happiness and missed it, but hast found wisdom instead, thou art fortunate."

"Those subjects have the greatest educational value, which are richest in incentives to the noblest self-activity."

"The weak, when they have authority, surround themselves with the weak. It is, indeed, a vice of rulers that men who have exceptional ability and worth are offensive to them, since they whose greatness is due to their position find it difficult to love those whom inner power makes great."

"The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible."

"There are faults which show heart and win hearts, while the virtue in which there is no love, repels."

"The study of law is valuable as a mental discipline, but the practice of pleading tends to make one petty, formal, and insincere. To be driven to look to legality rather than to equity blurs the view of truth and justice."

"Liberty is more precious than money or office; and we should be vigilant lest we purchase wealth or place at the price of inner freedom."

"Obedience is not servility. On the contrary the servile are never rightly obedient."

"Have as little suspicion as possible and conceal that."

"Make thyself perfect; others, happy."

"If thou wouldst be implacable, be so with thyself."

"We neglect the opportunities which are always present, and imagine that if those that are rare were offered, we should put them to good use. Thus we waste life waiting for what if it came we should be unprepared for."

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

"O brave youth, how good for thee it were couldst thou be made to understand how infinitely precious are thy school years—years when thou hast leisure to grow, when new worlds break in upon thee, and thou fashionest thy being in the light of the ideals of truth and goodness and beauty! If now thou dost not fit thyself to become free and whole, thou shalt, when the doors of this fair mother-house of the mind, close behind thee, be driven into ways that lead to bondage, be compelled to do that which cripples and dwarfs; for the work whereby men gain a livelihood involves mental and moral mutilation, unless it be done in the spirit of religion and culture. Ah! well for thee, canst thou learn while yet there is time that it will profit thee nothing to become the possessor of millions, if the price thou payest is thy manhood."

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

"They who no longer believe in principles still proclaim them, to conceal, both from themselves and others, the selfishness of the motives by which they are dominated."

"The best book is but the record of the best life."

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