Society and the World

Drive thy Business, or it will drive thee.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

It is good to rub and polish our brains against that of others.

I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.

An action is the perfection and publication of thought.

Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.

A book should serve as an ice-axe to break the frozen sea within us.

The book is the most efficient technological instrument for learning that has ever been devised by the human mind.

To read good books is like holding a conversation with the most eminent minds of past centuries and, moreover, a studied conversation in which these authors reveal to us only the best of their thoughts.

My own education operated by a succession of eye-openers each involving the repudiation of some previously held belief.

One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

All zeal for a reform that gives offense To peace and charity, is mere pretense.

The human baby . . . is a mosaic of animal and angel.

could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end.

Dear authors! Suit your topics to your strength, And ponder well your subject, and its length; Nor lift your load, before you’re quite aware What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.

whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes.

I am a galley slave to pen and ink.

The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land.

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

If a man love the labor of any trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him.

If a man love the labor of any trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him.

The passions that motivate you may change, but it is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.

I look on that man as happy, who, when there is a question of success, looks into his work for a reply.

I look on that man as happy, who, when there is a question of success, looks into his work for a reply.