Quotes to inspire and reflect

No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study, and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.

He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision.

I like this place, and willingly would waste my time in it.

Everything beautiful has its moment, and then passes away.

If there is a sin against life, it consist perhaps not so much in despairing of life as hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

Vile deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air, it is only what is good in man, that wastes and withers there.

The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.

Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.

The comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that of having had one.

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds.

You cannot acquire experience by making experiments. You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

We are not separate from spirit; we are in it.

Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.

So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meanness’s are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.

Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it. Rabindranath Tagore, Whisperings. The Inspirational Writings of Rabindranath Tagore on Nature, Love and Life. #3532 All that happens means something; nothing you do is ever insignificant.

The silent bear no witness against themselves.

The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums. G. K.

You think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who have ever been alive.

To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by a dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in a magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

I believe I shall, in some shape or other, always exist; and, with all the inconveniences human life is liable to, I shall not object to a new edition of mine, hoping, however, that the errata of the last may be corrected.

Inhabitants of underdeveloped nations and victims of natural disasters are the only people who have ever been happy to see soybeans.

After the bare requisites of living and reproducing, man wants most to leave some record of himself, a proof, perhaps, that he has really existed. He leaves his proof on wood, on stone, or on the lives of other people. This deep desire exists in everyone, from the boy who scribbles on a wall to the Buddha who etches his image in the race mind. Life is so unreal. I think that we seriously doubt that we exist and go about trying to prove that we do.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds.

Cursed be he that moves my bones.

Small to greater matters must give way.

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

I must be cruel, only to be kind: Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

The devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!

Every man has business and desire, such as it is.

Love truth, and pardon error.

Out, damned spot! out, I say!

Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.

Our envy of others devours us most of all.

And many strokes, though with a little axe, Hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak.

Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow.

What people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can.

He hath eaten me out of house and home.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands, -- This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.