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A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.
Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself… The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour… some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within… to a higher life.
I do not wish to live what is not life.
We may be pretty certain that persons whom all the world treats ill deserve entirely the treatment they get. The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly, kind companion.
What is virtue but repose of the mind?
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises?
I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simple and wisely.
There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.
As long as man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way, governments, society, and even the sun and moon and stars.
There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
When, in some dreadful and ghastly dream, we reach the moment of greatest horror, it awakes us, thereby banishing all the hideous shapes that were born of the night. And life is a dream: when the moment of greatest horror compels us to break it off, the same thing happens.
The man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify.
When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of reality. This is exhilarating and sublime.
If by patience, if by watching, I can secure one new ray of light, can feel myself elevated… shall I not watch ever?
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.
I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than to be crowded on a velvet cushion.
What is the use of going right over the old track again? You must make tracks into the unknown.
Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.
