197 quotes
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.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
We are made ridiculous less by our defects than by the affectation of qualities which are not ours.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
It is difficult to be sure of our friends, but it is possible to be certain of our loyalty to them.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
A great man, who lives intimately with his admirers, with difficulty escapes being made ridiculous.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
We do not see rightly until we learn to eliminate what we expect or wish to see from what we really see.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
If our opinions rest upon solid ground, those who attack them do not make us angry, but themselves ridiculous.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
If we fail to interest, whether because we are dull and heavy, or because our hearers are so, we teach in vain.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
It is more profitable to be mindful of our own faults than of those of our age.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
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.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
What we acquire with joy, we possess with indifference.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
We truly know only what we have taught ourselves.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
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.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
To cultivate the memory we should confide to it only what we understand and love: the rest is a useless burden; for simply to know by rote is not to know at all.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
When guests enter the room their entertainers rise to receive them; and in all meetings men should ascend into their higher selves, imparting to one another only the best they know and love.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
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?
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
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.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
It is the business of the teacher … to fortify reason and to make conscience sovereign.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
They who truly know have had to unlearn hardly less than they have had to learn.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
What a wise man knows seems so plain and simple to himself that he easily makes the mistake of thinking it to be so for others.
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)