Quotes to inspire and reflect

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.

Too often the strong silent man is silent because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.

A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

If you wish me to weep, you must mourn first yourself.

Many would be cowards if they had courage enough.

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.

Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him.

Either define the moment or the moment will define you.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that is your own self. So you have to begin there, not outside, not on other people. That comes afterwards, when you have worked on your own corner.

For the villainy of the world is great, and a man has to run his legs off to keep them from being stolen out from underneath him.

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.

Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.

When you learn how to die, you learn how to live.

They know enough who know how to learn.

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.

Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.

There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.

God bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind, love, charity, obedience, and true duty!

And since you know you cannot see yourself, so well as by reflection, I, your glass, will modestly discover to yourself, that of yourself which you yet know not of.

The trust I have is in mine innocence, and therefore am I bold and resolute.

The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords, in such a just and charitable war.

Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge of thine own cause.

I am not bound to please thee with my answers.

Grief is the agony of an instant, the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, we bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But where we burdened with like weight of pain, as much or more we should ourselves complain.

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.

Of writing well, the source and fountainhead is wise thinking.

Without an adversary prowess shrivels. We see how great and efficient it really is only when it shows by endurance what it is capable of.

To someone seeking power, the poorest man is the most useful.

Men decide far more problems by hate, love, lust, rage, sorrow, joy, hope, fear, illusion, or some other inward emotion, than by reality, authority, any legal standard, judicial precedent, or statute.

I pray you bear me henceforth from the noise and rumor of the field, where I may think the remnant of my thoughts in peace, and part of this body and my soul with contemplation and devout desires.

The name of peace is sweet, and the thing itself is beneficial, but there is a great difference between peace and servitude. Peace is freedom in tranquility, servitude is the worst of all evils, to be resisted not only by war, but even by death.

How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm! I thank thee, night! for thou have chased away these horrid bodements which, amidst the throng, I could not dissipate; and with the blessing of thy benign and quiet influence now will I to my couch, although to rest is almost wronging such a night as this.

What a mistake to suppose that the passions are strongest in youth! The passions are not stronger, but the control over them is weaker! They are more easily excited, they are more violent and apparent; but they have less energy, less durability, less intense and concentrated power than in the mature life.

But O the truth, the truth. The many eyes That look on it! The diverse things they see.

The conscience of a people is their power.

The wise are instructed by reason; ordinary minds by experience; the stupid, by necessity; and brutes by instinct.

One man may hit the mark, another blunder; but heed not these distinctions. Only from the alliance of the one, working with and through the other, are great things born.

He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.

Conscience and reputation are two things. Conscience is due to yourself, reputation to your neighbor.

Men keep agreements when it is to the advantage of neither to break them.

Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.