To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Character is higher than intellect...A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.
He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.
When it is darkest, men see the stars.
Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so.
The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
You can never do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius.
It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, — "Always do what you are afraid to do."
Success treads on every right step. For the instinct is sure, that prompts him to tell his brother what he thinks. He then learns, that in going down into the secrets of his own mind, he has descended into the secrets of all minds. He learns that he who has mastered any law in his private thoughts, is master to that extent of all men whose language he speaks, and of all into whose language his own can be translated.
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance.
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.
To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered.
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
It is an amiable illusion, which the shape of our planet prompts, that every man is at the top of the world.
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.
A man is made by the books he reads.
