It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is "What are we busy about"?
Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow.
Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
But here on the stream...Nature, who is superior to all styles and ages, is now, with pensive face, composing her poem autumn.
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
Associate reverently, and as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.
Nature is a greater and more perfect art, the art of God; Referred to herself, she is genius...Our art leaves its shavings and its dust about; her art exhibits itself even in the shavings and the dust which we make.
I learned this, at least...That if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary - new universal and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws expanded...and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.
He is the rich man and enjoys the fruits of riches, who summer and winter forever can find delight in his own thoughts.
The forms of beauty fall naturally around the path of him who is in the performance of his proper work.
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.
Happy are those who dream dreams, and are willing to pay the price to make them reality.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root...
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, that to be crowded on a velvet cushion.
Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts; but so to love wisdom as to live by its dictates.
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity!
Only that traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home, and enables me to enjoy it better.
It is the slowest pulsation which is the most vital. The hero will then know how to wait as well as to make haste. All good abides with him who waiteth wisely.
All good abides with him who waiteth wisely.
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared to our private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates his fate.
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
“A single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
That man is the richest whos pleasures are cheapest.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.
“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.”
“However mean your life is, meet and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its doors as early in the spring. Cultivate property like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts… Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.”