There are perhaps only one or two things in the world which are not far more charming in desire than they are in possession.

He who receives a great many letters demanding answer, sees himself as if engaged in a hopeless struggle of one man against the rest of the world.

Do not seek for information of which you cannot make use.

We go on multiplying our conveniences only to multiply our cares. We increase our possessions only to the enlargement of our anxieties.

If you read only the best, you will have no need of reading the other books, because the latter are nothing but a rehash of the best and the oldest. To read Shakespeare, Plato, Dante, Milton, Spenser, Chaucer, and their compeers in prose, is to read in condensed form what all others have diluted.

What we learn for the sake of knowing, we hold what we learn for the sake of accomplishing some ulterior end, we forget as soon as that end has been gained. This, too, is automatic action in the constitution of the mind itself, and it is fortunate and merciful that it is so, for otherwise our minds would be soon only rubbish-rooms.

Only the flowing water is pure and sweet. Only the spinning top and the moving bicycle do not fall over. Rest is not found in irregular and purposeless motion, nor is it stagnation all real and firm rest is to be sought in harmonious action.

You have got to play the game with the cards that have been dealt to you, and it is of no use for you to bewail your fate because you don't hold different ones. Look them over, arrange them, and play. You certainly must play them before you will get any others, and you need never expect to have other people's cards.

We are always getting ready to live, and never having time enough to live.

All real freedom springs from necessity, for it can be gained only through the exercise of the individual will, and that will can be roused to energetic action only by the force of necessity acting upon it from the outside to spur it to effort.

The more we reduce ourselves to machines in the lower things, the more force we shall set free to use in the higher.