The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.

We are reformers in spring and summer; in autumn and winter, we stand by the old; reformers in the morning, conservers at night.

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?

A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.

Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them.

Conversation is a game of circles. In conversation we pluck up the termini which bound the common of silence on every side.

No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, there can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.

The eyes indicate the antiquity of the soul.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

If you would lift me you must be on higher ground. If you would liberate me you must be free. If you would correct my false view of facts, — hold up to me the same facts in the true order of thought, and I cannot go back from the new conviction.

Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good.

No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it, so no man has a thorough acquaintance with the hindrances or talents of men, until he has suffered from the one, and seen the triumph of the other over his own want of the same. 

He who has put forth his total strength in fit actions, has the richest return of wisdom.

It is the duty of men to judge men only by their actions. Our faculties furnish us with no means of arriving at the motive, the character, the secret self. We call the tree good from its fruits, and the man, from his works.

An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the censures.

People wish to be settled: only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.

The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.

To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.

Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.

The thing done avails, and not what is said about it.

For every grain of wit there is a grain of folly.

Let him go where he will, he can only find so much beauty or worth as he carries.

Beauty without expression is boring.

Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. 

We are immersed in beauty, but our eyes have no clear vision.

Do not waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same fields, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again. 

There are many beauties; as, of general nature, of the human face and form, of manners, of brain, or method, moral beauty, or beauty of the soul.

The moral sense reappears today with the same morning newness that has been from of old the fountain of beauty and strength.

We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

On stars: Every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end. […] It is the most enduring quality, and the most ascending quality.

Beauty rests on necessities. The line of beauty is the result of perfect economy.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

Truth, and goodness, and beauty are but different faces of the same all.

On Henry David Thoreau: He chose to be rich by making his wants few, and supplying them himself.

Self-trust is the essence of heroism. […] It speaks the truth, and it is just, generous, hospitable, temperate, scornful of petty calculations, and scornful of being scorned.

Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will.

If a man own land, the land owns him.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world

Our distrust is very expensive.

It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, — “always do what you are afraid to do”

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

Don’t waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

What a man does, that he has. What has he to do with hope or fear? In himself is his might. Let him regard no good as solid but that which is in his nature, and which must grow out of him as long as he exists. The goods of fortune may come and go like summer leaves; let him scatter them on every wind as the momentary signs of his infinite productiveness.

Fear is an instructor of great sagacity, and the herald of all revolutions.

What a new face courage puts on everything!